The top-ranked player in junior golf was on the ropes Wednesday at the 77th U.S. Junior Amateur.
Miles Russell, the hotshot 16-year-old from Jacksonville Beach, Florida, who is also ranked 18th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, drew Jackson Ormond in the opening round of match play at Trinity Forest in Dallas. It was Ormond, the 2026 Florida commit from Webster, New York, who an evening earlier had birdied his penultimate hole of stroke play to move the cut line and ensure that there would be no match-play playoff for the first time since 2008.
That momentum carried over for Ormond, who jumped on Russell, a recent Florida State commit for 2027, taking a 2-up lead after just three holes. Russell trailed for much of the match, including 2 down with three holes remaining. He clawed back with a birdie at the par-5 16th and then drained a birdie bomb from nearly 40 feet at the par-4 18th to force extra holes.
Two holes later, Russell was advancing to Thursday’s Round of 32, where he’ll face Lucas Latimer, an incoming freshman at D-III Mary Hardin-Baylor who was one of nine Texans to make match play this week.
Texas claims eight of the last 25 U.S. Junior titles with its winners during that span including Jordan Spieth (twice), Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris.
Two other Texans, Henry Guan and Luke Colton, won early matches on Wednesday. Guan, a reclassified 2025 signee for Oklahoma State, took down medalist Mason Howell, a Georgia commit, 1 up, ensuring that Matthew Rosenfeld, another Texan, is still the last medalist to go on to lift the U.S. Junior trophy (2000). Guan advances to meet Chase Bauer, a 15-year-old from Gotha, Florida, in the Round of 32. Bauer, a 2028 recruit, upset defending champion and incoming Florida freshman Trevor Gutschewski, 3 and 1; Bauer won a Florida Junior Tour major at the Gators’ home club, Mark Bostick Golf Course, in January.
Colton, a Vandy commit who is ranked 25th in WAGR, was 3 up through three holes before Jace Benson rallied to tie the match after 13 holes. Colton eventually won, 2 up, and will face yet another Texan, Texas A&M signee Shiv Parmar, in the next round.
The third top-50 amateur in the field, Tyler Watts, made easy work of Indonesia’s Rayhan Abdul Latief, who is ranked No. 118 in WAGR. Watts won, 8 and 7, to continue his hot summer, which has included a record-breaking win at the Sunnehanna Amateur, top-10 at the Northeast Amateur and runner-up at the North and South Amateur. Watts, a Tennessee commit for 2026, was runner-up to Gutschewski at last year’s U.S. Junior.
More than half of Wednesday’s 32 matches are still undecided. Check back for updates…
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