The RDGA Junior Championships
The third longest-running major championship on the Rochester District Golf Association schedule, the District Junior Championships date to 1939, when Mort Reed won the first of three consecutive titles.
Like many RDGA tournaments, the RDGA Junior Championships have evolved through time. Initially conducted as a match play championship for all junior boys, ages 17 and under, the RDGA Junior Championship included two flights: Juniors (for boys ages 15 to 17) and Sub-Juniors (for boys ages 14 and under). In 1976, a third flight was added – Pee Wees – for boys ages 11 and under.
The RDGA Junior Championships continued with that same format of three flights – Juniors (ages 15 to 17), Sub-Juniors (ages 12 to 14) and Pee Wees (ages 7 to 11) – for the next 25 years, until 2000, when girls divisions were added for each of the age flights of the Championship, becoming the first RDGA competition to include female competitors.
Between 2000 and 2019, the RDGA Junior Championships were conducted using this same format – as match play, with boys and girls divisions in three age flights – although beginning in 2016, the format of the Girls Junior and Girls Sub Junior Championships were changed to stroke play. The Pee Wee Championships – for both Boys and Girls – have always been conducted as two 9-hole stroke play rounds.
Since 2020, all six RDGA Junior Championships have been conducted as two-day stroke play championships, with the Boys Junior and Boys Sub Junior competitions also changing to stroke play. There are good reasons for this change – first and foremost, it had become increasingly apparent that the match play format imposed a grueling schedule on competitors – especially in the Junior ranks, where some players were competing in up to five rounds over the course of three days. A second significant reason for adopting a new stroke play format for our Junior Championships is that a two-day, 36-hole format has become the benchmark by which many junior championships around the country are conducted. In fact, the nationally-recognized Junior Golf Scoreboard rankings will only consider events that follow this format.
Through the years, RDGA Junior champions have included many of the well-known names of local golfers who later went on to win other District championships as adults – and some who went on to careers as golf professionals.
Bob Hill won his first RDGA title in the 1947 District Junior Championship – later winning back-to-back RDGA District Championships in 1952 and 1953 before moving on to a long career in golf. Warren Simmons won three consecutive RDGA Junior Championships beginning in 1954 – the third coming in 1956, the same year he also won the RDGA District Championship. In the years since, there have been several Junior champions – boys and girls – who have gone on to win the District Championship title as well.
There have been a number of past Junior champions who later became local PGA and club professionals, including Bill Walsh, Rob Horak, Davidde Giordano and Brad McCluski, and at least one who went on to become a Div. I NCAA golf coach – Andrew DiBitetto. There have even been a couple of RDGA Junior champions who later went on to star as pro tour golfers, including 1967 RDGA Junior champion Terry Diehl; 1971 RDGA Sub-Junior champion Jeff Sluman; 2002 RDGA Girls Sub-Junior Champion Tessa Teachman – and most recently, 2005 RDGA Boys Sub Junior champion, Dominic Bozzelli.
In 2024, Alex Hill captured the RDGA Boys Junior Championship, holding off Brody Burgess, Drew Mancini and Ryan Thompson in the final round to win by an impressive five shot margin – and earn his first RDGA title.
In the final round of the 2024 RDGA Girls Junior Championship, Sophia Cellura took charge of the competition, posting a 1-under-par 71 for the low round of the Championship and finishing with a seven-shot victory over two-time defending Girls Junior champion, Harper Dittman, for her second RDGA Junior title – the first coming in 2019 in the RDGA Girls Sub Junior Championship.
In the other RDGA Junior Championships of 2024, John Paddock won the Boys Sub-Junior title, and in the Pee Wee Championships, Luke Witmer won the Boy’s title, while Gabrielle Ivy won the Girls’ title.