23-03-2025
Charlie Woods and Kai Trump made headlines; Miles Russell won Sage Valley Invitational
Charlie Woods and Kai Trump made headlines; Miles Russell won Sage Valley Invitational Past champions include Scottie Scheffler, Austin Eckroat, Akshay Bhatia, Aldrich Potgieter, Anna Davis, Asterisk Talley
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Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach highlights his day with a par-4 eagle
Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach made two eagle putts on the front nine of his round in the Korn Ferry Tour's LECOM Suncoast Open on April 19.
Provided by Russell family
The bulk of the attention in this week's Sage Valley Invitational was on two participants, Charlie Woods, the son of Tiger Woods, and Kai Trump, the granddaughter of President Donald Trump.
Miles Russell stayed under the radar until the final putt on Saturday and took home the championship trophy of one of the country's most prestigious junior tournaments.
Russell, 16, was bogey-free until the final hole when it didn't matter, and with his third 70 in a row, won the boys division at 9-under 279 at the Sage Valley Golf Club in Graniteville, South Carolina, beating Jackson Byrd of St. Simons Island, Georgia, by two shots.
Russell was under par in all four rounds. In Saturday's final round, he birdied Nos. 3, 4 and 15 and stepped into the breach when Byrd (74) tossed away a four-shot lead with five to play with double bogeys at Nos. 14 and 17 and bogeys at Nos. 15 and 16.
The victory is one of the biggest for Russell, whose junior golf resume also includes two U.S. Kids national championships, the 2023 Junior Players Championship and Junior PGA, the 2024 American Junior Golf Association Rolex Tournament of Champions and South Beach International Amateur and the 2025 Simply Boys Championship.
Russell is the No. 1-ranked AJGA player and No. 1 on the Junior Golf Scoreboard rankings and in 2023 was the youngest AJGA Player of the Year in the organization's history.
Russell has also played in two PGA Tour events and last year became the youngest in history to make the cut at at Korn Ferry Tour event.
Tyler Mawhinney, the two-time Times-Union high school player of the year, finished eighth at 3-over 291.
How did Charlie Woods and Kai Trump finish?
Charlie Woods shot 75 in the final round and tied for 25th out of 36 players in the boys' division at 11-over 299.
Kai Trump was 24th and last in the girls' division at 52 over, 59 shots behind winner Aphrodite Deng of Canada. Trump shot 89 in the first and fourth rounds.
Junior Invitational boys winners
2011 Nick Reach
2012 Zachary Olsen
2013 Carson Young
2014 Scottie Scheffler
2015 Marcus Kinhult
2016 Austin Eckroat
2017 Joaquin Niemann
2018 Akshay Bhatia
2019 Tom McKibbin
2020 Jackson Van Paris
2021 Canceled due to COVID-19
2022 Caleb Surratt
2023 Aldrich Potgieter
2024 Giovanni Daniele Binaghi
2025 Miles Russell
Junior Invitational girls winners
2022 Amalie Leth-Nissen
2023 Anna Davis
2024 Asterisk Talley
2025 Aphrodite Deng
