Tour de Force

National Coach Brad Schadewitz discusses the annual HKGA junior summer tour to the United States, which once again saw Hong Kong players put in solid performances.

 Kitty Tam claimed victory at the Odyssey World Junior Golf Championship at PGA West

I was particularly impressed with Kitty Tam, who was outstanding at the World Junior. Kitty, who is still only 15, finished in 27th spot in the 15-17 age division. Last year she placed sixth in the 13-14 age category, so to make the step up in divisions and put in the performance she did was very pleasing. The very next week, at the Odyssey World Junior Golf Championship at PGA West, Kitty played superbly to win the girls' title after battling with teammate Mimi Ho in the final round. She received her trophy from former major winner Al Geiberger, who, as many readers will know, is known as "Mr 59" after he became the first player to shoot that score in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event in 1977. It's going to be exciting working with Kitty over the next couple of years and she how she progresses. Mimi, who has improved a great deal in the past 18 months or so, ended up finishing in third place (after shooting the only sub-par score of the tournament in round one) and also recorded a top-10 place at the San Diego Junior Masters. Towards the end of the tour, Mimi joined forces with Marcus Lam to finish in a tie for first place at the Optimist Golf World Cup, a best-ball team event held at the PGA National Resort in Florida. Like Kitty, she is certainly one to watch.

The team also had great results at the Jack Kramer Memorial Tournament, which took place at Los Serranos Country Club in California. Tiffany Chan and Shinichi Mizuno, who were both playing on their last summer tour, both won their divisions with under-par scores and were followed closely by Michelle Cheung and Terrence Ng, who each finished third.

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