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Any incoming recruits for the men that could help?
Someone posted we have an incoming kid who is a multiple-time 5A state champ. Probably not as meaningful as major junior tournaments but not bad at all.
Do the big time junior players play for their HS golf team or is it like soccer where the best players focus on club (or in golf's case the big junior tournaments)?
They all do both. I grew up playing with Andrew Paysse, who played 5 for us most all this year and won 5A state the year after Jordan Speith won it. Winning an AJGA (American Junior Golf Association) is a bigger accomplishment than an individual State championship. Those events are packed full of players that will go on to play D1 golf.
5A and 6A state is very competitive as well, but you have a bunch of good players that got there because of team success, not solely on their individual success. In AJGA, the whole field is composed of kids that earned their way into the tournament by exemptions or qualifying. Fields are much deeper.
As far as recruiting goes, the players we have coming in next year are:
--Brandon Smith
A tall and lanky kid from Frisco who has had a great junior golf career. Recently won the AJGA Hunter Mahan championship in Dallas. Played with him about 4 times and he is a fantastic putter and has a great short game. Ranked #149 in the golfweek rankings and #22 in the Polo rankings.
Here is an article on his win in Dallas
http://golfweek.com/news/2015/mar/30/junior-boys-player-week-brandon-smith-texas-mahan/
Here is his profile and results in recent AJGA's.
http://ajga.org/RankingDBNew/bioForCollegeSigneePage.asp?UID=136441
--Max Miller
Max is goes to school at A&M Consol, I got to know him a little bit through junior golf, as he was in the same district as Belton until our senior year. Max is a great ball striker, good short game, but struggles occasionally with putting. As far as his accomplishments, I know that he plays in his fair share of AJGA's, not sure if he has won any or not. Off the top of my head I would say no. However, he did win the Texas State Junior last summer, which is a really prestigious tournament full of players that go on to play D1 golf. If Max can control his temper and keep his head straight then I think he can be a good player for us. He's ranked #51 in the Polo Rankings.
Here is his profile and list of his tournament results:
http://ajga.org/RankingDBNew/bioForCollegeSigneePage.asp?UID=105295
--Chandler Phillips
I don't know much about Chandlers game. He's from Huntsville. Never played with him, but I caddied for Andrew in the Junior Byron Nelson last summer and we played with Chandler for the first 2 rounds, he shot something like 69-62 and won the tournament by about 10 shots. From what I rememebr, he's a great putter. Makes everything that he looks at. It was really impressive to watch. He's ranked just behind Brandon at #25 in the Polo golf rankings.
Chandlers profile and tournament results:
http://ajga.org/RankingDBNew/bioForCollegeSigneePage.asp?UID=137203
Higgins seems to be staying in Texas with his recruiting. This is interesting to me because you typically see big programs expand their recruiting across the nation and even into Europe and Asia.