Aiken's Coleman to compete for PGA Jr. League championship
Oct. 3—When the Kennedy Middle School football team lines up for its game Wednesday night at Ridge Spring-Monetta, the Eagles will be doing so without their starting quarterback.
That's not due to injury, illness or any other kind of incident that might force a quarterback out of action — instead, Jack Coleman had to leave town briefly in order to compete for a national championship.
In golf.
Coleman is one of eight players on a Spartanburg-based all-star team that qualified for this week's 13u National Car Rental PGA Jr. League Championship, where they will compete against 11 other teams in Frisco, Texas, on national television.
The Field Ranch West course at PGA Frisco is the site of this week's national championship, and Sunday the country's best team of 13-and-under All-Stars will be crowned.
Each team of eight will be split into four two-player captain's choice teams, and the combined scores of those four pairs over Friday's and Saturday's rounds will be the team's aggregate score. Of the 12 teams that qualified, the four best scores will advance to Sunday's match play semifinals and finals.
Team South Carolina is based in Spartanburg and coached by Chip Ridley, a PGA professional at The Creek Golf Club. In addition to Coleman, the team is composed of players from Atlanta, Spartanburg, Columbia, Gaffney and Pinehurst, North Carolina, and they played matches throughout the summer and then advanced through qualifying stages to reach the national finals.
"Jack and his team have had to win pretty much at every level to get to this point, but they've done that, which has been cool to see," said Yates Coleman, Jack's father. "It's been a nice ride. The easiest way to describe it is this is probably similar to the Augusta National Drive, Chip & Putt, except it's put on by the PGA of America and you actually play golf, not just hit three to six golf shots. So there's a little bit of gamesmanship and golfing ability outside of a few shots here and there."
Jack, 13, was a member of Mead Hall's golf team this past spring, and he posted consecutive rounds of 78 to help the Panthers win the SCISA Class AA championship at the General James Hackler Course at Coastal Carolina University.
Now he's at Kennedy because he wanted to play football his eighth-grade year. But instead of putting on pads and lining up against RS-M, this week he and his fellow golfing All-Stars will be competing against teams from California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Ohio Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Competitive rounds begin Friday, but that's far from the only fun on the schedule this week. It begins with registration Wednesday morning, which is followed by ESPN interviews, a practice round and a welcome party thrown by event sponsor National Car Rental. There's another practice round Thursday followed by a skills challenge, and then the competition begins the next morning.
Friday's first round will be televised from 2-4 p.m. on ESPN2, then from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN+. Saturday's second round will be on ESPNEWS from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., then from 3-5 p.m. on ESPN+. Sunday's finale will be televised from 5-7 p.m. on ESPN2.
