Category: Mack Champ Invitational
Two new champions were crowned at the fourth annual Mack Champ Invitational for Girls, which was played April 12 and 13 at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, TX.
Lydia Portlock, a high school junior from San Antonio who has committed to play college golf at Texas, edged 2022 champ Alona Avery in the over-13 division, and Kayla Jackson, a 5th grader from Charlotte, won the 12-and-under division.
For complete coverage, go to mackchampinvitational.com.
When Jayden Lizama and Staci Pla won the 2023 Cisco Junior Series presented by the APGA and the Cameron Champ Foundation last summer, they also punched their tickets to Torrey Pines.
Lizama is one of two amateurs playing in the APGA Tour Farmers Insurance Invitational this weekend, and Pla played a pro-am round for the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open with Collin Morikawa and Alex Morgan, an amazing opportunity captured in the video below.
We are excited to share the dates for the fourth annual Mack Champ Invitational.
The girls tournament is returning to The Club at Carlton Woods, site of The Chevron Championship, from April 11-13. The boys will be back at Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston from May 2-5.
Tournament invitations will go out February 2nd for the girls and March 4th for the boys. To be considered for the tournament, join our junior golf database.
The MCI, inspired by the memory of Mack Champ, was created not only to provide an elite competitive experience for junior golfers of diverse backgrounds, but also to serve as a springboard into top-tier tournaments and college scholarships while creating an environment where players and families can build relationships that last a lifetime.
We can’t wait to continue the tradition in 2024!
The PGA Tour produced this video feature on the 2023 Mack Champ Invitational for Girls.
This is a Sacramento story with a Houston highlight and many more plot developments to come.
Back in 2017, Alaythia Hinds and her father, Lamar, followed Cameron Champ in the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort in Napa. It was the second professional tournament for Cameron, who was still at Texas A&M and played on a sponsor’s exemption. Alaythia, now a 17-year-old rising senior at Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove, CA, got to meet Cameron that week and was inspired to see a fellow Sacramento-area native playing at the game’s highest level.
“It was cool being able to connect with someone from the area, seeing how they’ve grown and how they’re succeeding in golf,” she said.
Alaythia’s relationship with the Cameron Champ Foundation has deepened over the years as she has volunteered at foundation-sponsored junior events at Foothill Golf Course and has traveled to Houston to play in all three Mack Champ Invitationals. After finishing 9th in 2021 and 15th in 2022, Alaythia shot even par (73-71) to take first place at this year’s MCI, which was significantly different from the first two iterations of the tournament. For the first time, the tournament was separate from the boys’ event, and it moved to a new course, The Club at Carlton Woods, site of The Chevron Championship, the first major of the LPGA Tour season.
But despite these changes, one thing remained the same: the MCI provided a unique environment for juniors from diverse backgrounds (and their families) to form lasting bonds.
“For all the years I’ve gone to the Mack Champ, I’ve definitely appreciated the experience of meeting a lot of people,” she said. “I get to interact with a lot of the players, more than I do at other tournaments, and I still keep in touch with some of them.”
Lamar contrasted the MCI experience with other junior events.
“It’s great to meet and see other families who are in the same boat you are, who are also trying to navigate the junior golf thing,” he said. “Typically she is the only African American golfer in a tournament. We just did a USGA qualifier, and out of 80 girls, she was the only African American in the field. So the MCI is completely different from our normal tournaments.”
But the MCI is not only about relationships. Alaythia’s victory this year has opened many competitive doors, including the chance to play in the John Shippen National Invitational (June 5-7, Grand Rapids, MI) and exemptions into the IMG Academy Junior World Championship (July 11-13, San Diego) and the Junior PGA Championship (Aug. 1-4, Hot Springs, AR).
“You have to be ranked really high to play in these tournaments,” she said. “Thanks to the opportunity that the Mack Champ Invitational has given me, I am able to compete.”
Closer to home, Alaythia is heading to Stanford for the First Tee National Championship in July and is looking forward to the high school golf season later this year, where she hopes to help Pleasant Grove improve on its fourth-place finish at the 2022 CIF State Girls Golf Championships. Alaythia tied for seventh in the individual standings.
Alaythia still has time to figure out what happens after high school, and though it seems certain golf will continue to take her places, she also excels in the classroom and as a musician. She is a 4.0 student and a violinist who plays with the Sacramento Youth Symphony.
“I do hope to play Division I golf in college,” she said, “and I’m excited to see what opportunities come next.”
Golf Digest documented the 2023 Mack Champ Invitational for Girls with this video series, which features an overview of the tournament and profiles of Haven Ward and Afi Amezado.
Episode 1: The Mack Champ Invitational
On April 13-15 at The Club at Carlton Woods, 47 young women from all over the world competed in front of family, friends and college coaches. From aces and playoffs to high-fives and hugs, the event offered several days of great golf and an abundance of inspiration.
Episode 2: Haven Ward
Haven Ward, the daughter of a single mother, has greatly benefited from the Mack Champ Invitational. Through exemptions and opportunities provided by Jeff Champ and the competitive atmosphere of the tournaments he has organized the last three years, the Atlanta native caught the attention of college coaches, and in fall 2023, she will be attending the University of Denver on a full golf scholarship.
Episode 3: Afi Amezado
Afi Amezado, a 14-year-old from an impoverished pocket of Accra, Ghana, boarded a plane bound for America on Wednesday, April 12, played a practice round at Carlton Woods in Houston on Thursday afternoon, and then competed in the Mack Champ Invitational on Friday and Saturday. She did it all with style, grace, humility and plenty of smiles.
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.”
Learn more about the tournament at mackchampinvitational.com.
Thanks to Babygrande Golf for this interview with Cameron! Scroll down to see all of the videos.
Life, Golf and Family
Keys to Success
Wisdom for the Next Generation
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.
You can read more about the event on pga.com.
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