On Monday-Wednesday, August 10-12, the Peggy Kirk Bell Girls’ Golf Tour wraps up its tour season with the SRIXON® TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP at the famous Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. This is the first year that the Tour Championship will be sponsored by Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO Golf and we are excited to have them as a title sponsor this year. Thanks to our new sponsor, the Tour Championship will feature a Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO Demo-Day on Sunday afternoon before the practice round and a short-game challenge presented by Cleveland Golf on Monday after round one.
Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, the host of the PKB Tour Championship for the last 3 years, was also host to the US Women’s Open in 1996, 2001, and 2007. The strong history of women’s golf at Pine Needles combined with a championship-level course make it the ideal location for the further development of the game and the unofficial home of the PKB Girls’ Golf Tour. 65 players of the PKB Girls’ Golf Tour, the largest “girls-only” junior golf tour in the country, will tackle the classic Donald Ross course at 5,745 yards in the Prep Series and 5,004 yards in the Futures Series.
In the Prep Series field this year, the 2015 Srixon Tour Championship will see the return of last year’s champion Siranon Shoomee (Sanford, NC 2016). East Carolina University committee Shoomee, currently ranked 10th, is one of the nine players within the top-50 on the PKB Performance Index. Her best finish this year was a tie for second at the Wolfpack Classic at NC State Lonnie Poole GC on June 6-7 with rounds of 75-73. Joining Shoomee at the top of the Performance Index in the 16th spot is Sarina Sonoda (Florence, SC 2016) who has two wins this season at the Precision Junior Girls Championship at Deep Springs CC on June 24-25 (70-77) and at the One-Day Open Series at Rocky River GC on August 2nd (75). Rounding out the top-three of the lowest-ranked players in the Tour Championship at number 20 on the Performance Index is Haeley Wotnosky (Wake Forest, NC 2018). Playing solidly all year, her best place was a runner-up finish at the PKB Foundation Classic at Mid Pines Inn & GC on January 31st with rounds of 74-81. Also in the top-50 on the Performance Index are Grace Yatawara (Salisbury, NC 2016), ranked 21st, Caroline Cahill (Wilmington, NC 2017), ranked 30th, Elizabeth Nguyen (Pinehurst, NC 2017), ranked 35th, Gabriella Kim (Wayne, PA 2017), ranked 37th, Hailey Freedman (Chapel Hill, NC 2018), ranked 45th, and Emily Hawkins (Lexington, NC 2018), ranked 47th.
In the Futures Series this year, there are ten players ranked within the top-25 on the PKB Futures Series Order of Merit. The number one ranked player, Carly Rudolf (Virginia Beach, VA 2019) won an impressive three tournaments this year, starting with the PKB Foundation Classic at Mid Pines Inn & GC on January 31st with rounds of 82-79. On April 12, she won the PKBGT Masters at Cutter Creek GC with a 79-71. At her next event, she won a third time at the Hampton Roads Classic at Nansemond River GC on April 18-19 with two solid rounds of 73-74. The number two ranked player on the PKB Futures Series Order of Merit, Amanda Sambach (Davidson, NC 2021) is the youngest player ranked in the top-25. She has never finished outside of the top-five in all nine of the events she has competed in this year. The most notable of her four wins came early in the season at the Boar’s Head Inn Classic at the University of Virginia where she shot 82-76 and at the PKBGT Futures Open at Sapona Ridge CC where she shot two solid rounds of 72-74. The third highest ranked player on the Order of Merit in fourth place is Sophie Holland (Cornelius, NC 2020). Sophie played solidly all season but her big win finally came at the Precision Junior Girls Championship at Deep Springs CC where she shot 75-73 and won the title in a playoff. Also in the top 25 are Kendall Turner (Chesapeake, VA 2019), ranked 5th, Muskan Uppal (Cornelius, NC 2019), ranked 6th, Mogie Adamchik (Raleigh, NC 2017), ranked 9th, Bryson Bowman (Summerfield, NC 2017), Alexis Sudjianto (Charlotte, NC 2019), ranked 13, Cassie Paulin (Winston-Salem, NC 2017), ranked 17th, and Riley Hamilton (Reidsville, NC 2020), ranked 25th.
The SRIXON TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP marks the end of the regular 2015 season. A lot is at stake at this event, including many invitations to the PKBGT INVITATIONAL in November. At the conclusion of the event, invitations to the PKBGT INVITATIONAL will be extended to the top-30 players from the PKBGT 2015 Bell Division Order of Merit rankings, the top-15 players from the 2015 PKBGT Prep Division Order of Merit rankings, the top-five players from the 2015 PKBGT Futures Division Order of Merit Rankings, the top-three players on the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Series Order of Merit, the number one player on the 2015 Futures One-Day Division Order of Merit, and the top-30 finishers on the PKB Performance Index. The PKBGT will also recognize any state junior amateur champion at the Invitational. This tournament will bring together players from Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. It will be a great tournament!
The Peggy Kirk Bell Girls’ Golf Tour is an initiative of the Triad Youth Golf Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation aimed at increasing learning and playing opportunities for youth golfers. Based out of Greensboro, North Carolina, the PKBGT offers affordable, high-quality nationally ranked girls’ golf tournaments designed to prepare junior girls’ golfers for high school and collegiate golf. The PKBGT is the nation’s largest “girls’ only” junior tour with over 375 members in 2013 and 262 girls playing in or committed to collegiate golf. Learn more about the tour at pkbgt.org or by contacting Tour Director Mike Parker at mparker@pkbgt.org or 336-347-8537.
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