The 29th annual Terra Cotta Invitational, featuring 75 of the world’s best junior, mid-amateur and collegiate golfers, gets underway in Naples this week.
The 54-hole stroke play tournament starts Friday and runs through Sunday at Naples National Golf Club. The field includes 39 of the top 50 golfers in the Rolex American Junior Golf Association rankings, 32 of which are Rolex Junior All-Americans.
Defending champion Luke Colton, who won last year’s Terra Cotta by one stroke over Tyler Watts, will look to become the first repeat winner since current LIV Golf League pro Caleb Surratt in 2021 and 2022. Other top juniors competing include Miles Russell, who won the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley in March and is the AJGA’s No. 1 ranked golfer.
In addition, former Gulf Coast High School standout Noah Kent, a two-time Southwest Florida Boys Golfer of the Year, will play in the Terra Cotta just days before teeing off at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Kent, a University of Florida golfer, earned his spot at the major thanks to a runner-up finish at the U.S. Amateur Championship last August. The 20-year-old Naples resident will catch a plane to Georgia Sunday night in advance of his practice round Monday at Augusta National.
“I can’t say we’ve ever had that happen before,” said Denny Glass, who’s been the Terra Cotta’s tournament director for two decades. “That’s pretty good.”
Glass said initially Kent wasn’t sure about participating at the Terra Cotta but that members of his advisory team convinced him to play, noting that the speed of the greens at Naples National is comparable to what he’ll experience at the Masters. Kent made his PGA Tour debut at the Texas Children’s Houston Open last week, shooting 4-over through two rounds and failing to make the cut.
Four other Naples golfers will be in action at the Terra Cotta: mid-amateurs Brian Bassett, Andy Fogarty and Josh Janeczko, the 2025 Naples National Golf Club champion, as well as Spencer Ives, a junior at the Community School of Naples.
Among the top 15 events in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, the Terra Cotta continues to draw players from around the world with this year’s field featuring golfers from 21 different states and 10 countries.
“This is probably the best field we’ve had in the years I’ve been putting it together,” said Glass, who turned down nearly 400 applications from golfers hoping to play at the event. “I say that almost every year and it kind of gets better and better. The higher the ranking we get from the World Amateur Golf Rankings, the better the field we get because they get more points so it all works together.”
The public is welcome to attend the Terra Cotta Invitational. Admission is free and the tournament will once again be making a donation to a Naples-area children’s charity.
Friday’s Round 1 pairings
Hole 1
7:30 a.m.: Spencer Ives, Nathan Piatt, Aadi Parmar
7:40 a.m.: Brooks Simmons, Austin Perkins, Jaxon Bandelier
7:50 a.m.: Tyler Sanford, Liam Pasternak, Bailey Sutter
8 a.m.: Owen Conairis, Mason Howell, Rodrigo Vazquez
8:10 a.m.: Carson Bertagnole, Chase Hughes, Adam Villanueva
8:20 a.m.: Nicholas Canitano, Edan Cui, Asher Vargas
8:30 a.m.: Sterling Hurd, Jaden Soong, Giuseppe Puebla
8:50 a.m.: Michael Riebe, Logan Reilly, Le Khanh Hung
9 a.m.: Noah Kent, Miles Russell, Brian Bassett
9:10 a.m.: Luke Colton, Tyler Watts, Taishi Moto
9:20 a.m.: Jackson Byrd, Ronin Banerjee, Kihei Akina
9:30 a.m.: Jonathan Bale, Todd White, Bobby Leopold
Hole 10
7:30 a.m.: Benjamin Baker, Will Gordon, Preston Hage
7:40 a.m.: Talan Harrison, Jesse Hellring, Jessy Huebner
7:50 a.m.: Charles Nelson, Smith Summerlin, Jason Duff
8 a.m.: Brett Schell, Sam Jackson, Coltrane Mittag
8:10 a.m.: Zach Van Dolah, John Daniel Culbreth, Jackson Ormond
8:20 a.m.: Pennson Badgett, Andrew Riley, Fillippo Serra
8:30 a.m.: Antoine Jasmin, Mitchell Ford, Joshua Hess
8:50 a.m.: Arrow Aarav Shah, Cole Stockard, Jon Ed Steed
9 a.m.: Tyler Mawhinney, Eduardo Matarazzo, Alex Yang
9:10 a.m.: Mark Costanza, Andy Fogarty, Josh Janeczko
9:20 a.m.: Nico Bencomo, Sohan Patel, Trevor Gutschesski
9:30 a.m.: CJ Winchenbaugh, Alexandre Vandermoten, Jake Albert
9:40 a.m.: Bowen Mauss, Cameron Kuchar, Philip Dunham
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