AJGA's Junior Players Turns 20 as a PGA Tour Pipeline

The AJGA's Junior Players Championship is marking its 20th year this Labor Day weekend, played on the same Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that hosts the PGA Tour's Players Championship. Seventy-eight of the world's top junior golfers, representing 16 countries and 19 states, are in the field, including 13 players from the 2026 Junior Presidents Cup rosters.

How did the tournament end up at TPC Sawgrass?

The event traces to an idea from Billy Dettlaff, then the general manager and director of golf at TPC Sawgrass two decades ago. Dettlaff wanted junior golfers to use the same locker room, the same tees and the same hole locations as PGA Tour players, rather than a scaled-down junior setup. Bud Cauley became the first player to complete what has become known around the tournament as "the double" -- playing the Junior Players and later teeing it up in the Players Championship itself.

How many players have completed the Junior Players-to-Players Championship double?

Eighty-seven golfers have now played both events on the Stadium Course, a list that includes major champions Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa. Justin Thomas became the first Players champion in 2021 who had also played in the Junior Players as a teenager. Ben James, who won the Junior Players five years ago, turned professional and shot 62 twice on the PGA Tour in 2026, at the RBC Canadian Open in June and the Wyndham Championship in August.

How big has the AJGA grown since 1984?

Stephen Hamblin has been the AJGA's executive director since 1984, when the organization ran between 13 and 18 tournaments a year out of a single van. A board member's prediction that the AJGA would soon run far more events struck Hamblin as far-fetched at the time.

"I looked at him like he had three heads," Hamblin said of that early prediction.

The AJGA now runs 145 events annually across the country, its largest schedule to date, serving golfers ages 12 to 19.