BGGA students were in the presence of golf royalty at the Faldo Series U.S. Grand Final when Sir Nick Faldo was in attendance to give a clinic on the driving range and speak at the opening welcome dinner.
Faldo started the clinic by talking about how students could get the most out of their practice. He was very engaging and entertaining throughout, even bringing up BGGA student Christian Wentzel as a volunteer to demonstrate a drill.
Faldo’s tales from when he played competitively kept the students on their toes and wanting more. Faldo, now dedicating his time to the development of junior golf through his Faldo Series, spent 97 weeks at the No. 1 ranked golf and has 39 professional wins including six major championships.
After the clinic, the tournament participants attended a welcome dinner to kick off the event. Faldo spoke about how he grew up playing the game, giving the junior golfers wisdom about their own paths to come.
Thursday kicked off the first round on Thanksgiving Day. Despite the rainy weather, scoring was good a number of rounds below par 72 leading the boy’s field and level par leading the girl’s.
Friday’s second round was chilly and wet but that didn’t stop incredible scores from rolling in. BGGA’s Teddy Tetak put up a blistering 8-under 64 with eight birdies on the day to lead the Boys U18 Division.
The sun shone on the final round as BGGA students swept all categories with wins. Tetak extended his lead to five. BGGA’s Annie Kim won the Girls U18 Division by 10 shots with three rounds in the low 70s. BGGA’s Egor Zotov went low with a final-round, 5-under 67 to capture the Boys U16 title. Ying-Ting Hsieh captured her third IJGT title of the fall season with a final-round, 3-under 69 to lead the field by eight shots.
The winners will go on to compete in the Faldo Series Asian Grand Final at Laguna Golf Course in Da Ning, Vietnam in March 2018.
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