Published July 17, 2008 on March 6, 2019

JGTA Makes Maiden Stop in China with The Southern Junior

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The Junior Golf Tour of Asia (JGTA) announced the next stop on the Tour’s annual schedule of events, The Southern Junior, which will take place April 1 – 4 at Foshan Golf Club in Foshan, China. Marking a historic day for junior golf, The Southern Junior will be China’s first-ever event that provides junior golfers with the opportunity to earn American Junior Golf Association Status points through their final ranking on the Junior Order of Merit.

The objective of the Tour is to provide junior golfers with a platform to advance their college golf standing and hone their game in recognized events during the offseason. The tournament field for The Southern Junior will be determined by AJGA PBE Status, resulting in an elite field of future stars from across the Asia-Pacific.

For over ten years, Foshan Golf Club has been well-known as one of the best 18-hole world championship golf venues in China. The club has been awarded “Golfers Choice Awards” “Top Ten Extraordinary Golf Courses in 2018” award and “Golf Digest” “2016-2017 China Top 100 Golf Courses” award, among a laundry list of others. Additionally, Foshan Golf Club hosts the European Challenge Tour’s Foshan Open yearly. Accompanying the club is Canton First Estate, a superb international ecological community of residential property.

“Foshan Golf Club is very happy to be a part of the Southern Junior this year. The past four years we have held the Guangdong Junior Championship, with the champion receiving a spot in the European Challenge Tour’s Foshan Open which includes a pro-junior event for local juniors to play alongside the pros – the first of its kind in all European Tour Events and we are proud of what our juniors have accomplished. Foshan Golf Club and our parent company, New World, are a strong supporter of junior golf and we truly believe that the growth of the game in China is through the juniors, and we hope that the juniors are able to continue their education through competing,” said Vic Carder – Director of Golf, Foshan Golf Club

“We are extremely grateful to Foshan Golf Club for their support of the development of junior golfers into College athletes, and for the Club’s hosting of this very first JGTA event in mainland China,” said Phil Tozer, Managing Director of the JGTA.

This will be the 4th event on this year’s schedule, coming only two weeks after the inaugural Hong Kong Junior Classic at Clearwater Bay – where the red-hot Pongsapak “Fifa” Laopakdee (2023) of  Thailand and local prospect Chloe Chan (2021) of Hong Kong held off the competition to win their respective divisions and be crowned the Classic’s first-ever Champions.

Entering the last few months of the season, the race is on to see which of these future stars on the JGTA has what it takes to be one of the very few players to be named to this year’s prestigious JGTA Junior All-Asia Team, the top-honours of the JGTA.

JGTA All-Asia Teams are composed of the top-10 boys and top-10 girls on the Junior Order of Merit after the final event of the JGTA season. The top-5 finishers in each division earn AJGA Fully Exempt Status – the most sought-after status in junior golf. Players who earn a spot on the JGTA All-Asia Team are considered by college coaches as top prospects for college golf.

Multiple events remain on the JGTA schedule providing ample opportunities to improve or gain a ranking, proving that no current ranking is safe.