The Maryland State Golf Association (MSGA) will be making significant changes to the Maryland Junior Amateur & Girls’ Junior Amateur format and entry process beginning in 2024. The 100th Junior Amateur and 47th Girls’ Junior Amateur are scheduled to be played concurrently at the US Naval Academy GC in Annapolis, June 24-26.

Both championships have been changed to 54-holes of stroke play with a cut after the first 36 holes. This change was decided to help ensure the championships are counting events in the World Amateur Golf Rankings® (WAGR®) system administered by the USGA and R&A. The field sizes for the Junior Amateur and Girls’ Junior Amateur will be 96 and 36, respectively. Players in each of the competitions will compete in an overall 12-18 age division.

“The hope of making these changes is to meet the USGA’s power ranking requirements so that future winners of these two Junior Amateur championships will earn an exemption to compete in future U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur Championships,” said Elisa Hermes, MSGA Director of Rules & Competitions. “It certainly would be a fantastic opportunity for these future champions to represent the Association on the national stage.”

In 2023, two-time Maryland Junior Amateur champion Bryan Kim became the most recent champion of the U.S. Junior Amateur. He defeated Joshua Bai 3&2 at The Daniel Island Club.

Abigail Avallone and Owen Newberry will look to defend their Girls’ Junior Amateur and Junior Amateur titles in 2024.

One change will be the handicap index requirement for both the Boys’ and Girls’ Championships. Boys will need to have an index of 7.0 or lower, while girls will need to have an index of 18.0 or lower.

Another important change will be the entry system for the Boys Championship. Entries that meet the following criteria would be entered immediately on a first-come, first-served basis until the close of entries or the field is full. All other entries will remain pending until the close of entries, which will be 10 days prior to the start of the championship. Should the field become full, a priority list wait list will be ordered by the time of the entry submission:

  • Players with a handicap index of 4.0 or better
  • Players who qualified for a USGA event the previous year
  • Players who made the cut at the previous year’s Maryland Open
  • Players who qualified for match play at the Maryland Amateur
  • Past Maryland Junior Amateur champions
  • Players who made the cut at the previous year’s Maryland Junior (beginning in 2025)

Alternate spots will be filled by the remaining players on the pending list.

Registration for these and other MSGA Championships and Qualifiers will begin March 5 at 10 a.m.