Players to watch at U.S. Junior include top-ranked Miles Russell, Charlie Woods

The U.S. Junior Amateur runs Monday-Saturday at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Saucon Valley’s Old Course, a 7,082-yard par 71, will host stroke play and match play, including Saturday’s 36-hole final, while the par-70 Grace Course will be the co-host for stroke play.

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The 264-player field features 97 exempt players, including defending champion Hamilton Coleman and top-ranked junior Miles Russell, who is also the highest-ranked amateur in the field at No. 7 in WAGR, ahead of France’s Oscar Couilleau (No. 33), Czechia’s Louis Klein (No. 65) and Vietnam’s Tuan Anh Nguyen (No. 98).

There are 98 18-year-olds in the field, including Eli Weidmann, who turns 19 the week after the championship, and one 13-year-old, Japan’s Riku Takase, the youngest player in the field. Wiedmann, who plays college golf at St. John’s, is one of six rising college sophomores competing.

Here is a closer look at a few of the notable competitors:

Miles Russell, 17, Jacksonville Beach, Florida: The top-ranked junior and seventh-ranked amateur in the world is coming off a T-39 finish at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and an early appointment to the 10-man U.S. Walker Cup team along with three others. Russell, who is verbally committed to Florida State for the Class of 2027, has never advanced past the quarterfinals of this championship.

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Tyler Mawhinney, 18, Fleming Island, Florida: The incoming Vanderbilt freshman already has one USGA title to his credit – the 2025 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, which he teamed with current Commodore Will Hartman to win. Mawhinney will also have a notable caddie, Jim Colton, the father of Mawhinney’s future Vanderbilt teammate Luke Colton, who turned 19 last month and was ineligible to compete this week.

Giuseppe Puebla, 17, Royal Palm Beach, Florida: Like Russell, Puebla qualified for last month’s U.S. Open, though he missed the cut. Now, the 2027 Florida commit will make his U.S. Junior debut. His family owns an Italian restaurant in Royal Palm Beach called Mario the Baker, which was started by Puebla’s late grandfather.

Hamilton Coleman, 18, Augusta, Georgia: Coleman is trying to become the first back-to-back champion of the U.S. Junior since Tiger Woods won three straight (1991-93). While the incoming Georgia freshman, who will room with reigning U.S. Amateur champion and 19-year-old Mason Howell this fall, missed the U.S. Open cut last month, he did close in even-par 70. Coleman needed 25 holes to get through his first-round match last year at Trinity Forest.

Charlie Woods, 17, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida: Speaking of Woods, Tiger’s son, Charlie, will make his third consecutive appearance in this championship after getting through a playoff at his qualifier in Lake Mary, Florida. He recently was on the bag for Russell, his future college teammate, as Russell qualified for the U.S. Open. This is the first year, too, that the U.S. Junior trophy is named after Tiger.

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Samar Sandhu, 15, Ashburn, Virginia: This is the second straight week Sandhu has been a part of a USGA championship. Last week, he caddied for his twin sister, Savera, in the U.S. Girls’ Junior. Savera made match play before losing her first match via concession. Their older brother, Sihan, is a rising junior at North Carolina and will make his PGA Tour debut at this week’s 3M Open; Sihan earned the sponsor exemption from winning last spring’s Augusta Haskins Award Invitational.

Ronin Banerjee, 17, Irvine, California: Last year, Banerjee became the first player in 48 years to win a U.S. Junior match, 9 and 8, when he routed Alejandro Caraballo in the Round of 64. The 2027 Tennessee commit is also a skilled tennis player, having appeared in a Wilson commercial alongside Roger Federer back in 2013 when he was just 4 years old.

Gabriel Mainella, 18, Canada: Staying with the tennis theme, Mainella’s family is flush with college tennis talent. His dad played at Texas-Pan American, now UTRGV, mom at Auburn and brother Christian currently at Rhodes College. Mainella also was a highly ranked junior tennis player but is now a rising sophomore at Longwood University, where he won once as a freshman.

Oscar Couilleau, 18, France: An Arizona State signee, Couilleau has posted several notable finishes in the past year. He won both the Monroe Invitational and European Club Trophy last year while also placing third at the World Amateur Team Championship. This year, he boasts a runner-up in the Portuguese Amateur, fourth at Sage Valley and top-10s at both the Lytham Trophy and European Nations Cup.

Rawlin Sutter, 17, Cullman, Alabama: The 2027 Alabama commit won his second straight Alabama Boys State Junior title earlier this month, those wins following his older brother Bailey’s 2024 victory.