For college coaches that hope for respect from the LPGA Tour, it has gotten much more complicated with an event that competed with a college event that raised eyebrows. 

LPGA on Q-Series/NCAA controversy: Giving the athletes a choice

BYRANDALL MELL

OCTOBER 31, 2018 AT 9:36 AM Getty Images

The LPGA vs. college golf.

They won’t actually be pitted against each other Wednesday, but some of the
game’s top college coaches can’t help feeling as if there is a clash of
developmental aims playing out in ways it never has this fall season,
with a pair of big events going on at the same time.

In Atlanta, four of the best college programs in the land will finish up the
East Lake Cup. At Pinehurst, the second half of the LPGA’s inaugural Q-Series
 will begin.

The clash is in the tug of war for talent, in how the juxtaposition of these big events
 brings into focus irreconcilable differences between the collegiate game and the
professional game, differences both sides are eager to find compromises to navigate within.

Two of Alabama’s stars – Lauren Stephenson and Kristen Gillman – didn't make the trip to
Atlanta. They’re at Q-Series. They’re both in good position to win LPGA tour cards, which
could mean they won’t be returning to Alabama’s roster for the spring season.

With Q-Series being played over two weeks, a month earlier than the final stage of
Q-School was traditionally played, fall college schedules have been impacted.

“I would like to see some revision,” Lauren Ianello, coach of defending national champion Arizona, said.

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LPGA tour operations officer Heather Daly-Donofrio was one of the architects of this
reimagined model of the final stage of the tour’s qualifying tournament. She said she is
thrilled with how the Q-Series is unfolding, but she has heard the complaints coaches have
 expressed in Atlanta this week.

While she feels good about the rapport she has built with college coaches, she welcomes
more input once Q-Series concludes. As much as Daly-Donofrio likes what she is seeing
at Pinehurst, she said tweaks are possible.

“I do feel like the communication with college coaches is good, but I’m open to more
communication,” Daly-Donofrio said. “With anything, it can always be better.“I would love to 
hear some feedback, and I would love to address the coaches when they are gathered in a 
forum at some point. It can only help strengthen our relationship.”

But college coaches should know Daly-Donofrio sees a great upside to Q-Series, a
two-week event that features 102 players battling to be among the 45 players and ties
who will win LPGA tour cards.

“We’re really pleased with how it’s going, with everything from the quality of the field, the
quality of the venue and the quality of the leaderboard,” Daly-Donofrio said. “We’re getting
 a lot of good comments from the players, about how they are looking at it more as a
marathon than a sprint, how they like eight rounds instead of five rounds, with a break
in the middle and a couple days to reset and regroup.

“A lot of players were easing into the event, knowing if they didn’t have a great round, there
was no need to panic, because they still had time to make up ground.”

This new final qualifying stage includes players who finished Nos. 11-30 on the final
Symetra Tour money list, Nos. 101-150 on the LPGA money list, the top five collegians
from the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, LPGA non-members from among the top
75 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings and 40 players from the second stage of
Q-School – half the number who made it from second stage last year.

Daly-Donofrio said she likes the new qualifying pool used to create the field, because it puts more emphasis on a year-long body of work, and less on a week or two of Q-School play. ‘That was a big factor in reworking the finals,” 
Daly-Donofrio said.

It’s also one of the reasons the LPGA created an exemption for the top-five ranked
college players. Those collegians are also being rewarded for their body of work.

Some college coaches, however, believe the top-five exemption may serve to entice
underclassmen to turn pro earlier than they planned. They don’t like the LPGA enticing
players to leave school early. Daly-Donofrio doesn’t see it that way.

She said Q-Series was set up to give athletes more freedom to make their own choices,
including the freedom to return to college for the spring if they win a tour card this week.
The tour created a new deferral this year, allowing collegians who win tour cards to
 delay taking up membership until any time before July 1.

“Historically, the top 10 collegiate players have graduated to the LPGA in some shape,
form or fashion and become successful professionals,” Daly-Donofrio said.
 “We wanted to narrow that funnel from Stage 2 of Q-School to the Q-Series,
but we also wanted to create opportunities and choices for that top talent as well.”

Collegians are flourishing halfway through Q-Series, with three at T-3 or better, four at
T-7 or better and five at T-11 or better. Daly-Donofrio said gifted underclassmen turning pro 
early is a reality of modern sport. “Your top athlete in any sport may not finish out his or her 
college career in this day and age,” Daly-Donofrio said. “Again, that’s the athlete’s choice.

“We want to provide options and choices for the athletes. That doesn’t always fit with everybody else’s goals and desires, but, at the end of the day, we look at it as being the athlete’s choice.”

Daly-Donofrio said the new deferral option is the direct result of the communication
opened with college coaches.

“We’ve had coaches call asking us to reconsider our policy and allow deferrals,”
Daly-Donofrio said. “I’ve been speaking to coaches for years about this. It’s one of the
areas where we’ve heard the coaches, understood their concerns and addressed them.”

In the recent past, collegians could enter Q-School as an amateur, but if they won LPGA
status, they had to declare their intention to take up membership after Q-School’s final round. That has created headaches for college coaches, with departing stars wreaking havoc with their rosters in the middle of the school year.

Daly-Donofrio said the deferral option fit the LPGA’s desire to put more choices into
the hands of athletes. Again, however, Daly-Donofrio said changes are possible, after a
 thorough evaluation of this year’s inaugural event.

“If things need to be revised, or tweaked, we will certainly do that,” she said,
“if it’s in the best interest of the competition and what we are trying to achieve.”

Story from the Golf Channel. 
To read more stories, https://www.golfchannel.com/

DICK STEWART ELECTED INTO THE MICHIGAN PGA HALL OF FAME

DICK STEWART ELECTED INTO THE MICHIGAN PGA HALL OF FAME

EAST LANSING, MI – One new member has been inducted into the Michigan PGA Hall of Fame. Dick Stewart was announced as the sole member of the 2018 Induction Class. He was recognized at the Michigan PGA President’s Dinner, Sunday, October 28th at The Country Club of Lansing as well as the Section's Fall Meeting Monday, October 29th. 

Stewart has been a PGA Member since 1979 and is in his 40^th season as the Head Golf Professional at Kalamazoo Country Club, the longest tenure in the Section.

Dick served as the Michigan PGA President 1993-1995. His career has included awards such as:

• 2006 PGA of America Merchandiser of the Year for Private Clubs
• 1987 & 2007 Michigan PGA Golf Professional of the Year
• 1984 & 2012 Michigan PGA Horton Smith
• 1988, 1990-1993, 2011 & 2014 Michigan PGA Bill Strausbaugh
• 1990-1992, 1995 & 2006 Michigan PGA Merchandiser of the Year for Private Clubs
• 1998 Greater Kalamazoo Golf Hall of Fame Inductee
• 2017 Kalamazoo Country Club Hall of Fame Inductee
• 2016 Golf Digest Hacker Award for Best Golf Shop
• 12x Golf World Business 100 Best Golf Shops – Private Club Category

The Michigan PGA Hall of Fame was founded in 2011 and exists to recognize and acknowledge those PGA Professionals who have excelled in their profession, achieved remarkable accomplishments, and made significant contributions to the game, the industry and the Michigan PGA. The inductees are honored at the Presidents’ Dinner each fall.

 

Left Out In The Cold

A court ruling that forced the Michigan boys' high school golf season to be played in the spring is having a negative impact on coaches, players and the game

 

By Fred Altvater

May 4, 2018

The Michigan boys’ high school golf season has been underway now officially since March 11, but on this April afternoon, Mother Nature remains insistent on once again getting in the way. In a Tri-Valley Conference match between Saginaw Valley Lutheran High School and Ithaca High School, two school located in the central part of the state’s lower peninsula, the temperature at the start of play was a brisk 38 degrees, with gusty winds making it feel colder. Still, the teams pressed on for at least an hour or so. That’s is until a snow squall forced players to take shelter in a small stand of trees before they eventually called it a day.

It’s a scene that has repeated itself throughout the state as a rough winter plowed into spring, wrecking havoc for hundreds of programs and golfers. Even when there was no snow to contend with, temperatures hovered in the 40s, making practice outside, let alone playing a tournament, a luxury. One estimate had more than 60 percent of scheduled matches affected by bad weather in April.

The state championship tournaments aren’t until early June, but getting in the minimum number of competitions for postseason eligibility has become an issue for some schools. For just the second time in history, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) has lowered the minimum number of required matches (four), and is allowing matches to be conducted after the regional tournaments and up until the final round of the state championships.

Certainly, the winter of 2018 lingered longer than in year’s past. Yet this exception has proved to highlight an unfortunate rule: In a state with ample golf courses, the dicey spring weather in Michigan makes holding the boys’ season an annual challenge.

The frustration can be heard by many, not just for the short-term annoyance of a disjointed season, but the long-term consequences of attracting boys to the sport.

WATCH NOW

A WOUNDED VETERAN FINDS SALVATION THROUGH GOLF

“We’re asking these kids to fall in love with a game that requires them to practice in hallways and classrooms, and then head outdoors for real competition while wrapped in five layers of jackets, coats, parkas, ski hats and gloves,” says Bill Hobson, an assistant coach at Sagniaw Valley Lutheran as well as a host of a popular golf travel series on local television. “Anyone who cares about the future of the game in this state needs to be very concerned.”

Meowgli

Snow-covered courses aren't hard to find in Michigan in March and April, delaying the true start of the season.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the issue is a new one for the state. Before 2008, boys’ high school golf in Michigan was played in the fall rather than the spring. While the season technically ran the same three months in length that it does now, the typically better fall weather meant the boys could use all 12 weeks they were afforded.

So why then are the boys slogging it through the spring? The answer is complex and involves Title IX, girls’ high school volleyball and a federal court judge.

• • •

Intended to create equal opportunities for students regardless of gender, the enactment of Title IX in 1974 has undoubtedly had a profound impact on the creation of sports programs for women at the college and high-school level. In Michigan, this was acutely seen in the proliferation of girls’ volleyball programs, coinciding with the sport’s rise in college.

As more high schools offered the sport, an unintended consequence surfaced. Schools began to see a strain on facilities and coaches, as the same gyms being used for volleyball were already occupied by boys’ and girls’ basketball teams.

To handle the scheduling issue, the MHSAA decided to play girls’ basketball in the fall and girls’ volleyball in the winter. This did not align with when college teams held these two sports, but seemingly addressed the facilities strain.

So what does all of this have to do with boys’ golf? We’re getting there.

In 1998, two families took exception to the scheduling of girls’ volleyball in the winter and filed a suit in the Western Federal District Court in Grand Rapids, citing Title IX discrimination. They claimed the MHSAA was scheduling numerous girls’ sports in non-traditional seasons and placing girls at a disadvantage.

In December 2001, after hearing arguments from both the parents and the MHSAA, Richard Enslen, nearing retirement after 30 years as a federal court judge, ruled in favor of the families who brought the suit and ordered that girls’ volleyball and girls’ basketball swap seasons.

In his ruling, though, Enslen, who died in 2015, also ordered the MHSAA to re-examine all high-school sports scheduling to make sure it complied with Title IX requirements by the beginning of the 2003-’04 school year. Additional appeals (the final one went to the U.S. Supreme Court before being turned away) and compliance planning pushed the actual enactment of the ruling to the 2007-’08 school year.

As a consequence of Enslen’s ruling, girls’ tennis also was required to move from fall to spring, while boys’ tennis became a fall sport. Similarly, boys’ golf was moved from the fall to the spring while girls’ golf went from the spring to the fall, to balance sports being in the “advantageous” season (aligning with when the college equivalent played its championship) and the “disadvantageous” season. In the end, the athletic seasons for 55,000 girls and 15,000 boys were altered.

John Johnson, communications director for the MHSAA, says that while the association tried to push back against parts of Enslen’s ruling (in the process accumulating more than $6 million legal fees), its hands are tied regarding what season certain sports can be contested. All Johnson can do is empathize with golfers and their parents frustrated by the changes.

Jack Foster has been the boys’ golf coach at Cadillac High School for more than 20 years. Having directly seen the impact of the switch in the schedule, Foster believes the ones who are now unfairly harmed are the boys who shoehorn their golf season essentially into a month-and-a-half window.

“With the first six weeks of the golf season snowed out, my team is now forced to miss two days of classes per week over the next four weeks to at least get a minimum number of matches played to prepare for the state tournament,” Foster said.

Alan Holben Photography

The joy of winning the state title in Michigan remains high, but the journey to get there has become an arduous one since the boys season moved to the spring.

Hobson argues that the quality of the competition has suffered since moving to the spring and participation has declined. Johnson at the MHSAA confirmed that the number of boys’ playing high school golf has dropped roughly 20 percent since the original court ruling in 2001, exceeding the overall decline in high school students in Michigan in that same period. This has resulted in a change in the postseason structure, cutting back an early round of elimination events.

Says Hobson: “This sport is going to die a slow death at the high-school level if the obvious solution isn’t implemented.”

The obvious solution? Hobson argues its to allow the boys to join the girls and compete again in the fall rather than the spring.

Johnson says he’d love if that was a real option, but the only way he sees this potentially happening is through additional legal action, something the MHSAA isn’t in a position to take on.

Potentially, though, there is room to maneuver legally. Johnson notes that the current ruling was made in the Western Michigan Federal District Court. “A new suit could be filed with the Eastern Michigan Federal District Court, if the courts agreed an argument existed,” Johnson said. “However, the legal process would be long and arduous, plus there would be no guarantees the original ruling could be overturned.”

In the meantime, the boys’ teams trudge along. Their saving grace? The calendar has just turned from April to May, and with it the promise of better weather arrives.

Not a moment too soon.

Michigan boys prep golfers are left out in the cold <<< Link to article

The Pete Dye Course at French Lick is one hell of a golf course- With Drone

   

The Pete Dye Course at French Lick is one hell of a golf course and nestled high a top the hills of southern Indiana, it is well worth the drive to play and no one could blame you if  it was written on your golf bucket list. Yes, the golf course is that good. Pete Dye was said to move millions of dollars in dirt after initially saying that a course could not be built on the property. Well, sparing no expense, (he broke the budget twice) he accomplished one of the great feats in American golf architecture. 

     To prove he could do it, he drew out some of the holes on a cocktail napkin and turned scribbles into one of the great feats of his career. The Pete Dye course is one of several designs he turned into golf courses in Indiana alone and while Crooked Stick is the most notable design in the Hoosier state, the Indiana Golf Trail gives golfers incentive to see how much incredible golf you can play among Dye's masterpieces.

In the following video shot at the course and described by PGA Professional Andy Fortner, we talk about the best par 3, 4, and 5's on the course and if you look at the finishing holes on the course, you know Pete has saved the best for last. French Lick also has other courses in its portfolio and are at this website. 
The Pete Dye Course 3 hole drone review <<< Video

The Pete Dye Course at French Lick <<< French Lick Resort website

The French Lick golfing community is not shy about going after golf tournaments. Over the last ten years, they have hosted both PGA Champions Tour and LPGA Legends Tour golf, B1G Tournaments, the Symetra Tour (futures tour for the LPGA) and numerous state title events. 

The Heather Named 2018 Michigan Golf Course of the Year

Many Michigan golf courses want the title of Michigan Golf Course of the Year but only one earns the honor  and is chosen from more than 800+ candidates each year. This year, Boyne's Heather Course received the honor.  Based on the criteria used which factors into the 100 Best courses you can play and 50 most friendly to women, The Heather takes home the top prize. 

HARBOR SPRINGS – Boyne Resorts’ very first golf course, The Heather, has been named the 2018 Golf Course of the Year by the Michigan Golf Course Association (MGCA).

Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and opened in 1966, The Heather was the landmark golf course for Boyne Golf, and is considered the landmark course for the resort golf industry in Northern Michigan as well.

“The Heather’s challenge is absolutely timeless,” Kate Moore of the MGCA said in making the announcement. “It is widely considered to be one of the finest championship courses in the nation.”

The MGCA Course of the Year Award honors a member course that meets four criteria: exceptional quality of the course; exceptional quality of ownership and management; outstanding contribution to its community; and significant contribution to the game.

The Heather spans 7,148 yards of rolling fairways, natural wetlands, tour white sand bunkers and blueberry bogs. A championship caliber player finds a sound test. The Michigan Amateur Championship has been contested on The Heather four times, including the 100th Michigan Amateur in 2011. Proving its broad appeal, the course is also consistently recognized as one of the friendliest for women and senior golfers. It’s many awards and rankings include being listed among "The Top 100 Courses You Can Play” by Golf Magazine, and "50 Best Courses for Women" by Golf for Women magazine.

"In a state that is full of great golf facilities, to be recognized by our golf course association of owners and operators is very humbling and an honor,” Bernie Friedrich, Boyne’s senior vice-president said. “This recognition is a tribute to our wonderful staff which has taken great pride in the vision we maintain here at The Heather.”

The Heather is located at Boyne Highlands Resort in Harbor Springs. Boyne Resorts was founded in Michigan by Everett Kircher and has become a national resort company that employs over 7,000 full-time and seasonal staff nationwide at its 13 resort properties, which includes 10 ski resorts. In Michigan it has three resorts, Boyne Highlands, Boyne Mountain and Bay Harbor, that feature 10 golf courses in addition to their highly regarded ski offerings.

Boyne remains under the ownership of the Kircher family. Stephen Kircher, president, said his late father Everett, a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member and innovative ski operator who started the company, was someone who knew, instinctively, that the golf business wasn’t really about golf.

“He knew it was about active, outdoor, leisure entertainment, and he was decades ahead of the competition in capitalizing on that revelation when in 1966, The Heather course opened to almost universal praise,” he said. “It’s still arguably our best golf course.”

The Heather has been lengthened with some additional tees over the years to match golf’s technological advances, but it was built to last by Jones in collaboration with Everett Kircher, who was a builder and inventor among his many talents.

The dreaded and yet very popular pond that fronts the No. 18 green on The Heather was a Kircher idea after Jones had finished his design work. Kircher wanted a more dramatic finish and ordered the pond to be constructed. Golfers have splashed to the finish in memorable fashion for 52 years, and annually thousands upon thousands of golf balls are fished out of the hazard.

“Every golf course we have built since has been measured against The Heather, as in, is this as good as The Heather?” Friedrich said. “Frankly, they might not be. As for 18 and the pond, Everett reminded Jones who owned the place and Everett wanted to do something dramatic. Now it’s the signature of the course, and really a signature of Boyne Golf. On almost all of the courses we have the last hole has a pond in front of it.”

Media Contacts: Michigan Golf Course Association, Kate Moore, 517-230-8040, kmoore@michigangca.org; The Heather: Bernie Friedrich, Boyne senior vice-president, 231-439-4906, bfriedrich@boyneresorts.com

2018 AJGA Rolex Junior All-America Boys

2018 Rolex Junior All-America Boys

2018 

The 12 boys on the 2018 Rolex Junior All-America first team represent seven states (five Californians), Canada, Japan and Australia.

Three junior golfers earned Rolex Junior All-America honors for the first time: James Song of Rancho Santa Fe, California; U.S. Junior Amateur champion Michael Thorbjornsen of Wellesley, Massachusetts; and Alexander Yang of Carlsbad, California.

Three juniors make their second appearance on the first team: 2018 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Akshay Bhatia of Wake Forest, North Carolina; Ricky Castillo of Yorba Linda, California; and Karl Vilips of (Australia) Wesley Chapel, Florida. Four junior golfers are now playing college golf: Ryan Hall of Knoxville, Tennessee (South Carolina); Shiryu (Leo) Oyo of (Japan) San Diego, California (San Diego State); Cameron Sisk of El Cajon, California (Arizona State); and Song (University of Southern California-Berkeley). In addition to the four already competing at the next level, five boys are committed to play college golf.

Meet the Teams

First Team

2018 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Akshay Bhatia of Wake Forest, North Carolina

Ricky Castillo of Yorba Linda, California

Canon Claycomb of Bowling Green, Kentucky

Ryan Hall of Knoxville, Tennessee

William Moll of Houston, Texas

Shiryu (Leo) Oyo of (Japan) San Diego, California

Cameron Sisk of El Cajon, California

James Song of (Canada) Rancho Santa Fe, California

Michael Thorbjornsen of Wellesley, Massachusetts

Travis Vick of Houston, Texas

Karl Vilips of (Australia) Wesley Chapel, Florida

Boys – Second Team

Alexander Yang of Carlsbad, California

Connor Creasy of Abingdon, Virginia

Eugene Hong of Orlando, Florida

J. Holland Humphries of Austin, Texas

Bo Jin of (China) Encinitas, California

John Keefer of San Antonio, Texas

William Mouw of Chino, California

Jeewon Park of (South Korea) Lake Mary, Florida

Luke Potter of Encinitas, California

Gordon Sargent of Birmingham, Alabama

Ian Siebers of Bellevue, Washington

Jackson Van Paris of Pinehurst, North Carolina

Jonathan Yaun of Minneola, Florida

Honorable Mention

Trey Bosco of Austin, Texas

Nicolas Cassidy of Johns Creek, Georgia

Kuangyu Chen of (Australia) Shenzhen, China

Aaron Chen of Fremont, California

George Duangmanee of Fairfax, Virginia

Chris Fosdick of Middlefield, Connecticut

Peter Fountain of Raleigh, North Carolina

Austin Greaser of Vandalia, Ohio

Frankie Harris of Boca Raton, Florida

Jun Min (Jimmy) Lee of (South Korea) Mission, Texas

Tyler Lipscomb of Carrollton, Georgia

Dylan Menante of Carlsbad, California

Hazen Newman of Las Vegas, Nevada

Jay Nimmo of Benton, Kentucky

Cole Ponich of Farmington, Utah

Austyn Reily of Pottsboro, Texas

Jackson Rivera of Rancho Santa Fe, California

Jeevan Sihota of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Brian Stark of Kingsburg, California

Nicklas Staub of Boynton Beach, Florida

Will Thomson of Naples, Florida

Brendan Valdes of Orlando, Florida

Andi Xu of (China) San Diego, California

Sampson-Yunhe Zheng of (China) Orlando, Florida

The AJGA has announced their Rolex All-American Girls Team

Oct. 20, 2018

2018 Rolex Junior All-America Girls

2018 announcement | Boys Team

The 12 girls on the 2018 Rolex Junior All-America first team are from seven states, China, South Korea and Australia. 

The team features five future college teammates: three at Stanford (Sadie Englemann of Austin, Texas; 2017 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tennessee; and Lei (Angelina) Ye of Shanghai, China) and two at Duke (Anne Chen of (Australia) Sugar Land, Texas; and Erica Shepherd of Greenwood, Indiana). Michaela Morard of Huntsville, Alabama, and Megan Schofill of Monticello, Florida, are also committed to Alabama and Auburn, respectively. Eight of the 12 first teamers have earned Rolex Junior All-America team honors three or more times, five for the fourth time (Heck, Morard, 2018 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Yealimi Noh, Shepherd and Yujeong Son of (South Korea) Norman, Oklahoma).

Chen and Schofill earned Rolex Junior All-America honors for the first time in 2018.

Meet the Teams

First Team

Anne Chen of (Australia) Sugar Land, Texas

Sadie Englemann of Austin, Texas

Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tennessee

Lucy Li of Redwood Shores, California

Michaela Morard of Huntsville, Alabama

2018 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Yealimi Noh of Concord, California 

Alexa Pano of Lake Worth, Florida

Megan Schofill of Monticello, Florida

Erica Shepherd of Greenwood, Indiana

Yujeong Son of (South Korea) Norman, Oklahoma

Lei (Angelina) Ye of (China) Bradenton, Florida

Rose Zhang of Irvine, California

Second Team

Amari Avery of Riverside, California

Irene Kim of La Palma, California

Xin (Cindy) Kou of (China) Windermere, Florida

Alexa Melton of Covina, California

Katherine Muzi of Walnut, California

Bohyun Park of (South Korea) Farmers Branch, Texas

Brooke Seay of Rancho Santa Fe, California

Aneka Seumanutafa of Emmitsburg, Maryland

Erika Smith of Orlando, Florida

Kornkamol Sukaree of (Thailand) Huntington Beach, California

Christine Wang of Houston, Texas

Elizabeth Wang of San Marino, California

Honorable Mention

Ty Akabane of Danville, California

Zoe Antoinette Campos of Valencia, California

Briana Chacon of Whittier, California

Ya Chun Chang of (Taiwan) Bradenton, Florida

Megan Furtney of South Elgin, Illinois

Ashley Gilliam of Manchester, Tennessee

Agustina Gomez of Cisterna, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Savannah Grewal of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Sophie Guo of (China) Orlando, Florida

Yoon Min Han of (South Korea) Bradenton, Florida

Trinity King of Arlington, Texas

Anina Ku of Basking Ridge, New Jersey

Rachel Kuehn of Asheville, North Carolina

Yu Wen Lu of Shanghai, China

Ashley Menne of Surprise, Arizona

Alyssa Montgomery of Knoxville, Tennessee

Brianna Navarrosa of San Diego, California

Jennie Park of Carrollton, Texas

Sarah-Eve Rheaume of Lac-Delage, Quebec, Canada

Serena Sepersky of Temecula, California

Latanna Stone of Riverview, Florida

Alexandra Swayne of Maineville, Ohio

Nicole Whiston of San Diego, California

Katie Yoo of Orlando, Florida