Koa Seymour, center left, and Ethan Hill, far right, won the girls and boys divisions of the 2023 Junior PGA Works. Morgan Rodriguez and Thomas Reid were second.
Ethan Hill from Trinidad and Tobago and Koa Seymour from Los Angeles won the first Junior PGA Works to be played since the late 1990s.
Twelve boys and twelve girls competed in the tournament. Hill edged Thomas Reid from Lawrenceville, Ga, by two shots. Kasim Narinesingh-Smith from Kennett Square, PA, was third.
In the girls’ division, Seymour also won by two shots, holding off runner-up Morgan Rodriguez (Delray Beach, FL) and third place finisher Blayne Brown (Riverside, CA).
Aleah Shields-Rodipe, left, won the 12-and-under division, and Alaythia Hinds won the 13-18 division.Brenna Preap, Alexis Lamadrid, Alaythia Hinds and Cailla WardVivian Lott, Layla Phillips and Aleah Shields-Rodipe
The Mack Champ Invitational girls tournament moved to a major tournament course this year, and the competitors were more than up to the challenge.
After two years at Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston, the MCI for Girls moved to the Nicklaus Course at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, a Houston suburb. The course was prepped for the LPGA’s Chevron Championship, the first women’s major of the season, which started the week after the MCI.
Alaythia Hinds, a junior from the Sacramento area, won the 13-to-18 division after making a birdie on the par-5 18th in a playoff against Callia Ward, a sophomore from Albuquerque. Both players were even par after 36 holes of regulation play.
Aleah Shields-Rodipe, a 7th-grader from nearby Conroe, TX, shot 70-79 for a five-over total to win the 12-and-under division. Vivian Lott (Fayetteville, GA) was second at eight over, and Layla Phillips (Harbor City, CA) was third.
In a remarkable turn of events, Shields-Rodipe got the first hole-in-one in MCI history on No. 3 in the first round, and Lott scored her own ace on the 12th hole in the second round.
As always, though, the MCI was about more than golf. The tournament brings together diverse golfers and their families for a chance to build lasting relationships.
Brenna Preap, a senior from Stockton, CA, who will play college golf at Grand Canyon University next year, described the importance of the MCI this way: “People see golf as a rich sport, you have to come in with wealth, but with the Mack Champ, they bring a lot of diverse players in and show that we also are part of the golf world.”
Shields-Rodipe said that she appreciated the chance to play in a tournament with such a diverse field.
At the Mack Champ Invitational, she said, “other people that look like me and play golf like me can have the same opportunities as I do.”
The Cameron Champ Foundation has partnered with the PGA of America to revive Junior PGA WORKS, a companion tournament to the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship (PWCC).
The Junior PGA WORKS will feature 12 boys and 12 girls, most of whom were competitors in this year’s Mack Champ Invitational. The 36-hole event will be played at Shoal Creek Club on May 6 and 7. The PWCC, known as the “Most Culturally Significant Championship in Collegiate Golf,” will be played May 8 to 10 at Shoal Creek and Bent Brook Golf Course in Birmingham, AL.
“We are proud to partner with the Cameron Champ Foundation in the return of Junior PGA WORKS,” said PGA President and Director of Golf at the Country Club of Lansing, John Lindert. “Junior PGA WORKS is a terrific opportunity for elite high school players to compete on an elevated stage and experience the excitement of the PWCC.”
This year’s PWCC will feature a lineup of 30 teams and 52 individuals representing 44 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions and other minority-serving institutions from all over the country.
The 24 players competing in the Junior PGA Works, presented by Medical Property Trust, will have the chance to showcase their talents in front of these college coaches and to participate in the entire Championship week, including PGA WORKS Beyond the Green, a career exploration event designed to educate and inspire talent from historically underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in the business of golf and beyond.
“As a foundation, we believe that creating sustainable pathways for diverse juniors from underserved and underrepresented backgrounds is critical to changing the face of the game and providing opportunities for those same juniors beyond the course,” said Jeff Champ, CEO and Co-Founder of the Cameron Champ Foundation. “We also believe that the best way to build these pathways and increase access is by finding like-minded partners for collaboration. We are proud to partner with the teams at Medical Properties Trust and PGA WORKS to mark the return of this event so that the juniors will be able to showcase their talent.”
Junior PGA WORKS was part of the PWCC from its creation in 1986 through the late 1990s.
Shiv Parmar, left, and Isaiah Diaz with Cameron Champ.
The 86 boys who came to Houston for the Mack Champ Invitational last week faced stiff competition, rough conditions and a new three-round format.
For the first time, the MCI at Memorial Park Golf Course was an all-boys event. The MCI for Girls will be played April 13-15 at The Club at Carlton Woods, site of The Chevron Championship, the first major of the LPGA Tour season.
The weather was a challenge. The players had to battle through rain, low temperatures and high winds all week. In the end, two Texas natives came out on top, with Shiv Parmar winning the 13-18 division and Isaiah Diaz winning the 12-and-under division. Parmar, from the San Antonio suburb of Selma, shot 4 under over three rounds to hold off defending champ KJ Ofahengaue by a shot.
Isaiah Diaz with second place finisher Luke An, left, and third place finisher Raiden Orille, center.
Diaz, from Del Rio, shot 65 in the third round to finish 4 over and win the 12-and-under division.
This was the most competitive MCI yet, with 20 rounds of par or better despite the challenging weather. Seventeen of the 25 high school seniors in the field have committed to play college golf. This was also the first year the tournament featured three rounds, which meant players could earn World Amateur Golf Ranking points.
Paul Kerner is joining the Cameron Champ Foundation as Director of Coaching and Community Engagement.
Kerner recently graduated from the PGA Golf Management program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where he was a member of the golf team and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. He will be working out of Foothill Golf Course and will lead the development of our foundation’s junior golf programs.
Originally from Crofton, MD, he says he is looking forward to playing an integral role in the foundation’s mission of making golf accessible to underserved and underrepresented communities.
“As a minority golfer and graduate of an HBCU with many years of experience in the golf industry, I understand the need to diversify not only the people who play golf, but also the people who work in this amazing sport,” he said. “I look forward to increasing minority participation in the Sacramento area and beyond, and to making golf a more inclusive environment.”
We are excited to announce that Daniel Bryant will be joining the Cameron Champ Foundation in January as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.
Bryant, a longtime supporter of Cameron’s journey and our foundation, recently retired after a career of nearly 40 years at State Farm Insurance. He also has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector, having served in national and local roles for the 100 Black Men of America and on the boards of Pre-Collegiate Programs at Sonoma State University, the Sonoma County School to Career Program, and Goodwill Industries Redwood-Empire.
We look forward to having Daniel on our team and are excited to see how his extensive experience in the corporate and nonprofit worlds can help us continue to serve the youth of our community.
2022 MCI champs KJ Ofahengaue and Alona Avery with Cameron Champ.
The Mack Champ Invitational is introducing significant changes in 2023 that will give our junior golfers even more opportunities to shine.
We are creating a separate girls’ event in April that will be played at the site of The Chevron Championship, the first major of the LPGA Tour season. Our boys’ event is adding a third round, which means players can earn World Amateur Golf Ranking points, a first for the MCI.
What a thrill to see these great junior golfers moving on to college competition! We’ll be following them all and can’t wait to see what they do on the course and in the classroom.
The Sierra Nevada Chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America sent volunteers from all over Northern California and Nevada to Foothill for a “field day” on October 24. It was a great day for the Foundation and the course, and Good Day Sacramento came out for some on-location reporting.
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