AJGA hosts first tournament in Fresno-area welcoming golfers from around the world

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- This week the top junior golfers in the world will be at Copper River Country Club. "You're going to see quite a few on the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour," said Adam Rogers, the senior regional director for the AJGA on the West Coast. "We've got kids from Texas, Oregon even Taiwan, India, and Mexico this week."

The American Junior Golf Association runs 6-7 tournaments every week across the country, but this is the first one to be held in the Central Valley.

"It's nice to just throw your clubs in the car and just go," said Ansen Tran, a soon-to-be junior at Clovis North. "It's also good because I know what the course looks like. I have experience playing here."

Tran is one of the locals looking to test his game against the world's best. "It's all the best juniors in the world who come here to play and that's a pretty big part of it. It's really nice to have that competitive playing field to be able to put you in the mood and it makes you get better."

Asterisk Talley also in the field for the girls. The Chowchilla native already making a name for herself this summer winning three straight tournaments - moving to 5th in the AJGA rankings.

There's also the allure of adding your name to a list of past AJGA winners like Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler, and Tiger Woods.

"Look no less than what just happened yesterday," Rogers said. "Brian Harman the Open Champion was a two-time AJGA player of the year. Think '03-04. Then Sunday afternoon in Truckee, Akshay Bhatia, who won on the PGA Tour, was the 2018 AJGA player of the year."

For an organization that has dozens of prestigious national partners, The Fresno-Clovis Convention & Visitors Bureau is the local partner that was able to bring this tournament to the Valley.

"Three-year partnership so look forward to making this an annual stop on the calendar," Rogers said.

A 78-player field of boys and girls tees off tomorrow before wrapping up on Thursday. Like a PGA Tour event, there was even Monday qualifying.

For sports updates, follow Stephen Hicks on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.