A local favorite will kick off the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship on Monday morning at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham.
And it would not be a surprise if Raleigh’s Jenna Kim, who will hit the event’s opening tee shot in the first threesome at 7:30 a.m., hit a final, winning putt in Saturday’s championship match.
Kim has a winning track record in USGA-affiliated events in North Carolina with triumphs in the 2023 Carolinas Women’s Amateur, the 2023 Carolinas Junior Girls’, and in 2026, has added the North Carolina Junior Girls’ and the North Carolina Women’s Amateur. She also has two victories in AJGA events.
The 17-year-old rising senior at Durham Academy also has the advantage of familiarity with the Old Chatham layout, expected to play at more than 6,400 yards.
“It’s such an amazing course,” Kim told the USGA. “The greens are kind of unlike anything else in this area. They’re super-fast and firm and make [the course] really challenging.”
Kim’s family — her mother and father are medical doctors — live on a fairway at Brier Creek Country Club. A 4.0-student, Kim has committed to attend Yale University.
The 156-player field will compete in stroke play Monday and Tuesday before the top 64 players begin match play, which concludes with the championship match on Saturday.
Kim has a history of winning important tournaments in the Triangle. She beat Virginia Tech’s Emily Mathews, a Mebane native, to win the state amateur as a 14-year-old at Northridge Country Club.
Canadian Aphrodite Deng, the defending champion, has turned pro.
Victoria Davis of Cary and Ella June Hannant of Pikeville are two of four N.C. players to earn spots through qualifying. The others are Maria Isabella Errichetto of Southern Pines and Riley Grimm of Pinehurst. The field also includes Mia Carles of Clinton, South Carolina, who won the recent Carolinas Girls’ Junior at Jamestown Park Golf Course by eight strokes.