Seven ACES Students embarked on the JFGA Tournament Travel Squad (TTS) trip to spend 3 weeks in Florida, competing in 3 tournaments hoping to post some impressive results under the watchful eyes of College Coaches.
The first tournament, organised by the Hurricane Junior Tour and hosted at the fantastic Osprey Point Golf Club in Boca Raton would prove to be two rounds of testing golf, exposed to high winds, numerous hazards and the odd alligator lurking in the waters.
The ACES Students were quick out of the gates, posting competitive scores on Day 1 with Elite ACES Robin Metzger (+1, 73) and Junior ACES Tiger Christensen (-2, 70) being good enough to lead the U18 and U16 boys categories by 2 shots.
Three more ACES Students finished day 1 in the top 10 of their respective categories, Claudia Alnajim (T2nd, U16 Girls), Marlon Neto-Bradley (T6th, U18 boys), and Wigo Weisner (10th, U18 Boys).
Going into the second and final round, all the ACES students wanted to show intent to climb the leader board early.
Neto-Bradley and Weisner did just that, shooting 2 over and 3 over to finish 4th and 7th respectively. After a tough day 1, Sebastian Collins battled to a second round 76 (+3) helping him climb 9 places to finish solo 12th. Unfortunately, Robin Metzger was unable to hold onto his over night lead, finishing in 8th position in the U18 Category.
Claudia Alnajim pushed all the way to the final holes but had to settle for a 3rd place finish in the U16 girls category.
Christian Collins ground out a solid round of +7 in the strong winds to finish in 10th place in the U16 boys category.
Tiger Christensen stole the show in the U16 boys category however. Being in a commanding position over night with a two shot lead, Tiger got off to a slow start in round two, and after a number of consecutive bogeys was forced to steady the ship, before matters got out of his control. He was able to do just that, shooting level par for the last 11 holes, to win the U16 category by 1 shot.
Safe to say, a successful start to the 3 week tour of Florida with a lowest finish of 12th, 5 of the 7 students finishing top 10, one 3rd place and 1 win.
The squad now travels to Sarasota to compete in the 3 day IMG Junior World Tournament where we hope for some equally great results. Good luck to the Squad and we welcome Junior ACES student Max Popovic who will be joining us.
