Preston Stout Repeats as Champion of the 23rd Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship

Algya Maintains Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship Lead

DALLAS – Trevor Algya of Highland Village maintained his lead at 4-under in the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Jr. Championship. He finished his second round at Lakewood Country Club with a 1-over 72, ending the day with a one-stroke lead.

Algya started his day smoothly with a 2-under front nine, thanks to birdies on the par-4 1st hole and par-5 9th hole. On his back nine, Algya produced four bogeys that set him back a couple of shots, but not enough to take him out of the lead.

“I didn’t execute some shots that I should have,” said Algya of his back nine struggles. “My putter wasn’t working as well today as it was yesterday.”

Algya still remains positive heading into Thursday’s final round.

“Solid tee shots and landing spots on greens is my mindset throughout the whole tournament, especially for tomorrow,” Algya says of his game plan for the final round of the championship.

As Algya sits alone in first, there are 5 players tied for 2nd. Henry Guan, Andrew Petruzzelli, Ben Delarosa, Preston Stout, and Kevin Mu all sit at 3-under par total.

Defending champion, Preston Stout of Richardson, carded a 1-over par 72 today in the second round.

Stout was steady throughout his day by going 3-under through 14 holes. He then proceeded to go 4-over in his last four holes.

“I am not too happy about that,” says Stout about his finishing holes. “But that’s how it goes sometimes.”

Stout made an electric eagle by driving the green on the par-4 16th hole.

“The hole was downwind so I ripped my driver to 20-feet,” the Oklahoma State commit recounts. “I was able to just one-putt for eagle, so that was nice.”

Lakewood Country Club’s very own member Andrew Petruzzelli was on fire today as he carded the round of the day with a 5-under 66.

Petruzzelli finished his front nine one-under par and was able to finish his back nine strong.

“I just stayed patient all day,” Petruzzelli said. “The ball kept dropping in.”

Petruzzelli indeed had the ball dropping as he made 7 birdies total in the second round.

“I was wedging it close and pretty much made everything,” he says.

The TCU commit knows this course well as he has been a member at Lakewood for a while.

“I have been here my whole life,” Petruzzelli said. “I’m out here every day and glad to be a member here.”

Sitting alone in 7th is Waco’s Brayden Bare at 2-under par. Bare carded an even-par 71 today in the second round.

A trio of players are tied for 8th at 1-under par. Nicholas Logis, Jake Maggert, and Brooks Simmons are all just three shots back of the lead.

The field was cut to the low 30 players and tee times will begin Thursday morning at 8:00 am. For more information on the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Jr. Championship, click here.

Trevor Algya Leads Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship

DALLAS – Trevor Algya from Highland Village birdied his final hole Tuesday at Lakewood Country Club to take a one-shot lead after one round at the 2022 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. Algya, a recent graduate and incoming freshman at Loyola Marymount University, shot a 5-under-par 66 that included a bogey-free scorecard.

“I’m feeling pretty awesome,” Algya said of his first round. “A bogey-free round today and my caddie was great. We had a plan to every hole and stuck to it.”

Plan executed through 18 holes at Lakewood Country Club. Algya began his round on the back nine and immediately birdied his first hole, the par-4 10th. Algya tacked on a birdie on the par-4 18th and made the turn bogey-free and 2-under par. He made three more birdies on his second nine.

“I’ve played in this tournament the past two years,” said Algya, who finished T9 in the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. “The course is great and in great condition, so I’m excited for tomorrow.”

Sitting one shot back in solo second is defending champion Preston Stout. The incoming senior from Richardson put together another great round at Lakewood Country Club with a 4-under 67.

“I hit it really well and wedged it well too,” Stout said of beginning his title defense. “I could’ve made a few more putts, but 4-under is still a solid round.”

Stout sits a stroke ahead of a trio of players. Brooks Simmons of Dallas, Jaivir Pande of Houston, and Austin Hofferkamp of The Woodlands all shot 3-under 68 on Tuesday.

Two players share sixth place at 2-under 69. Brayden Bare from Waco and Noah Holtzman of Wichita, Kansas are all just three shots behind Algya headed into Wednesday’s second round of the prestigious 54-hole championship.

Seven players sit tied for eighth at 1-under par as the rest of the field chases a piece of Texas golf history.

For the second time in tournament history, the LJT conducted a Monday Qualifier for the final four spots into the 84-player field. Price Hill from Boerne won the Qualifier with an even-par 71. Luke D’Alise from Lubbock (+1), Logan Zurn from Grapevine (+2) and Parker Heath from Dallas (+3) also qualified for the championship on Monday.

The Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship has received registration entries from more than 350 juniors from across the state in each of the past few years.

“We decided to continue the Monday Qualifier this year because of the demand for entries,” said Kevin Porter, the TGA’s Director of Competitions for North Texas. “We also had a lot of positive feedback regarding the qualifier last year.”

Hill, who won the Qualifier, put himself in solid position heading into the rest of the event. In Tuesday’s first round he shot a 2-over 73 and sits in a tie for 37^th.

Round 2 of the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship starts Wednesday at 8 a.m. For more information, including complete scoring, click here.

Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship Set for June 7-9 

DALLAS – The Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship, the most prestigious all-boys junior event in the state, is set for June 7-9 at Lakewood Country Club in Dallas.   

“We’re excited to be back at Lakewood Country Club for yet another incredible year,” said Kevin Porter, the TGA’s Director of Competitions for North Texas. “Each year this field continues to get stronger. This year will include four players that will earn their spots through a Monday qualifier for the second time. And we are excited to welcome back two past champions to the field as well.” 

Veritex Community Bank, one of the leading financial institutions in Texas, is the title sponsor for the fourth consecutive year. Longtime Lakewood Country Club member and Veritex Bank CEO/President Malcolm Holland was a part of a small group that created the Byron Nelson Junior Championship in 1999. Veritex Bank is excited to be a part of this monumental tournament and just renewed its’ agreement as title sponsor for this event for three more years. 

“Veritex Bank is honored to be associated with such a prestigious junior championship,” Holland said. “We are committed to serving the game, promoting junior golf and hosting an excellent championship for everyone involved.”  

For the 22nd time Lakewood Country Club will serve as host to the prestigious junior event. Opened in 1912, Lakewood was designed by Tom Bendelow, a Scottish architect whose tremendous career included north of 400 golf courses. In 1947, Texan Ralph Plummer redesigned the layout. In 1995, the team of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore completed a facelift of Lakewood and then again in 2014. The par-71 layout plays from 6,750 yards and features Bermuda fairways and bentgrass greens.  

Throughout the years, the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship has crowned many worthy champions including Jordan Spieth, who won three times from 2008-10. Ryan Grider, the 2020 Texas Amateur Champion, and Pierceson Coody, part of the recent Texas Longhorn National Champion Team, are also past champions of this event.  

Along with those players, fellow past champions include Ryan Baca (2000-01), Alex Moon (2006), Eric Durbin (2005), Vincent Martino (2011), Justin Fraley (2002), Levi Valadez (2016) and Luke Dossey (2017). Past Champions Gaven Lane (2019) and Preston Stout (2021) are in this year’s field and looking to repeat as champions. 

Preston Stout won last year after leading wire-to-wire. He posted 6-under par for the tournament and claimed the title by two shots. 

The 84-player field will play 54 holes of stroke play competition. After 36 holes, the field is cut to the low 30 players and ties for the final round. The tournament is World Amateur Golf, Golfweek and Junior Golf Scoreboard ranked. Numerous AJGA performance stars will be handed out to the top finishers, including “Fully Exempt” status.  

For the second year in a row 42 players will compete for four spots in the Championship via an 18-hole qualifier on June 6.   

For more information on the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship, click here.  

Stout Crowned Champion of the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship

Dallas – Preston Stout officially claimed his wire-to-wire victory Thursday at the 22nd Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. The Richardson J.J. Pearce High School junior finished the 54-hole championship with a 6-under-par 207 total and won by two strokes over runner-up Jase Summy from Keller.

Playing from the lead since the first round, Stout posted a 1-over 72 in the final round. Near the midway point of final 18 holes, Stout led by as many as four shots, but that advantage shrunk to two as he traversed the final two holes at historic Lakewood Country Club. Stout persevered and handled the challenges thrown his way thanks to a good attitude and strong mental game.

“There’s so many great players out here, so it took a lot out of me to stay in it,” Stout said. “I didn’t have my best stuff today, but I was able to stay in it.”

Stout got off to a strong start Thursday morning with back-to-back birdies on the second and third holes. He wobbled shortly after with two front-nine bogies, but a birdie on the par-5 ninth hole allowed him to turn at 1-under for the day.

As it did for Stout in the second round, the back nine started out a little shaky. This time, Stout took a double bogey on the par-4 10th hole. He was able to get one stroke back with a birdie three holes later. Holding a three-shot lead with two holes to play, Stout bogeyed the par-5 17th hole. With his two-shot cushion, he made a routine par on his 54th hole of the tournament to clench the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship victory.

Stout joins an elite group of winners after Thursday’s round, including three-time professional major champion Jordan Spieth who won the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship three consecutive years from 2008-10. Spieth set Lakewood’s competitive course scoring record in 2009 with a second-round score of 62.

“It feels great, a lot of great players have won this tournament,” Stout said. “It feels good to add myself to the list.”

Other past winners include Charlie Holland (2004), Cody Gribble (2007), Luke Dossey (2017) and Pierceson Coody (2018). 

These prominent names have led the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship to be considered the premier junior boys’ tournament in Texas, if not the entire southwest region of the country. With his victory, Stout earned an exemption into the 112th Texas Amateur, set for June 17-20 at Midland Country Club.

Save for two years during course renovations, Lakewood Country Club has hosted the tournament every year since its creation in 2000. Built by architect Thomas Bendelow in 1912, Lakewood has continuously supported the TGA and its efforts to support junior golfers.

In 2017, Lakewood hosted three of the TGA’s major events: the 108th Texas Amateur, U.S. Open Final Qualifying and the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. All of these prestigious events were hosted by the club in a short, frantic three-week span.

Back in 1944, Byron Nelson won the Texas Victory Open at Lakewood Country Club. The win at Lakewood was Nelson’s catalyst that resulted in a 26-win streak over the course of two golf seasons, including his run of 11 straight wins in 1945.

The Texas Victory Open was eventually renamed the Byron Nelson Championship, which is the ninth longest-running tournament on the PGA Tour and certainly one of the most competitive and is greatly celebrated by golf fans nation-wide.

The competitors in the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship are members of the Texas Junior Golf Alliance, a joint venture between the Texas Golf Association, Northern and Southern Texas PGA and Houston Golf Association. The goal of the Alliance was to allow junior golfers a clear path to the best tournaments in Texas.  

The LJT Staff extends its sincere gratitude to Lakewood, its members and staff, as well as the LJT volunteers, who all played integral roles in creating a memorable championship week.

For more on the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship, click here.

Stout Maintains Veritex Byron Nelson Junior Championship Lead

DALLAS – Preston Stout, a rising junior from J. J. Pierce High School in Richardson, closed Round 2 on Wednesday at the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship with an eagle on No. 17 and a birdie on No. 18 at Lakewood Country Club. Stout finished with a 2-under-par 69 to extend his overall lead and total score to 7-under 135 for the tournament.  

Stout took off early in the round, carding three birdies to shoot a to 3-under on his front nine. His score soared to 8-under, but Wednesday’s round wasn’t without its battles. On his back nine, Stout stumbled with four bogeys; suddenly he was 1-over par through 16 holes on his second round.

“I had a little trouble reading some of those putts early on the back nine,” Stout said of his early back-nine struggles. “I lost a couple iron shots to the right and couldn’t get up and down.”

Stout fought back, however, and answered with an eagle on 488-yard, par-5 17th hole.

“I hit a really good drive down there and had about 175 yards in,” Stout said. “I hit a cut 7-iron to about 6 feet and made the putt.”

With the momentum coming off 17, Stout then birdied the final hole at Lakewood, a 416-yard rollercoaster of a par 4. Stout said he never gave up and trusted his game.

“I just told myself to stay in it, you’re always in the golf tournament,” Stout said. “There were a lot of holes left to play. I just tried to stay in it and hit some good golf shots coming down the stretch.”

Stout said he plans to get in some more practice later today and then rest for the final round tomorrow.

“I’ll get a good night’s rest and be ready to come to play tomorrow,” Stout said.

That’s a good thing, too, because Keller’s Jase Summy is just two shots back from Stout. Summy fired a 4-under 67 in the second round to climb to 5-under 137 for the tournament.

“Nothing’s really going to change from what I did today,” Summy said regarding his final round game plan. “I just have to play smart and hit more smart shots.”

Sharing third place through two rounds of the 54-hole championship are Ben Gregg from Dallas and Plano’s Matthew Comegys. They both grinded Wednesday to finish at 4-under 138. Gregg shot 1-under 70 in the second round; Comegys came in 3-under 68.

Not far behind and tied for 5th place at 139 are Ben Delarosa from Dallas and Jack Beauchamp of Westlake.

Thirty-five players survived the championship’s 36-hole cut at 4-over 146. They’ll get going for the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship’s final round Thursday at 8 a.m. For more information, including complete scoring, click here.

Preston Stout Leads Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Championship

DALLAS – Preston Stout from Richardson birdied his final hole Tuesday at Lakewood Country Club to take a one-shot lead after one round at the 2021 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. Stout, an incoming junior at J.J. Pearce High School, shot a 5-under-par 66 that included an eagle-2 on the par-4 13th hole.

“I’m trying to win the golf tournament,” Stout said of his expectations for the week. “I’ve been hitting the ball well lately, so I was hoping to keep the good ball-striking going.”

Mission accomplished though 18 holes. Stout began his round on the back nine and quickly birdied his first hole, the par-4 10th. After the eagle on No. 13, Stout added a birdie on the par-5 17th and made the turn bogey-free and 4-under par. He made two more birdies on his second nine, offset by his lone bogey on the 211-yard, par-3 fifth hole.

“I kept it in the fairway and hit a lot of greens,” said Stout, who finished T39 in the 2020 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. “I like this course because it’s tight, and I’m pretty straight off the tee. It’s a nice course, a lot of fun to play.”

Stout came into the championship riding a heater of momentum. He won the American Junior Golf Association’s Carolina Trace Junior in late March. In early May, Stout was victorious at the TaylorMade Junior Open at Texas Rangers Golf Course in Arlington. A couple weeks after that, he finished as a runner-up in UIL Class 6A Individual State Championships.

Stout leads a pair of Austin juniors, Andrew Tan and Zachary Kingsland. They both shot 4-under 67 on Tuesday. Tan, a junior at Vandegrift High School, poured in six birdies on Lakewood’s pure rolling bentgrass greens. Kingsland, a junior at Westlake High School, also made six birdies in the first round. Kingsland in May helped lead Westlake to its fourth consecutive (and 11th overall) UIL Class 6A state championship with an 18-shot victory at Legacy Hills Golf Club in Georgetown.

Three players share fourth place at 3-under 68. Ben Gregg from Dallas, Ty Holbrook from Granbury and Westy McCabe from Dallas are all just two shots behind Stout headed into Wednesday’s second round of the celebrated 54-hole championship.

As it has been virtually all year, weather was a factor on Tuesday. After nearly 2 inches of rain fell on Monday, and another half inch on Tuesday morning, the Legends Junior Tour staff moved back first round tee times by 30 minutes, but another 30-minute delay was needed to let the course dry out.

Lakewood has received more than 10 inches of rain since May 1.

For the first time in tournament history, the LJT conducted a Monday Qualifier for the final four spots into the 90-player field. Elijah Estonilo from Allen won the Qualifier with a 2-under 69. Matthew Foster from Dallas (-1), Grant Yerger from Austin (+1) and Luke D’Alise from Lubbock (+1) also played their way into the championship on Monday.

In each of the past few years, the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship has received registration entries from more than 350 juniors from across the state. With a 90-player cap to the starting field, most who try to enter don’t get in.

“We decided to do a Monday Qualifier this year to help meet the demand for entries,” LJT Tournament Director Kevin Porter said. “We also wanted to give the championship more of a professional feel to it. The Monday Qualifier helps there, too.”

Estonilo, who won the Qualifier, was one of those juniors who, in years past, couldn’t get into the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship. He said the experience was stressful, but he added that the addition of a Monday Qualifier to what he considers to be the best junior tournament in Texas only makes the event more special.

“I think it was an amazing decision to add the Monday Qualifier,” Estonilo said. “With the Qualifier, you can prove yourself on this course, which is very difficult. You can prove that you belong in this tournament with the best players in Texas and in the entire U.S., perhaps.”   

Round 2 of the Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship starts Wednesday at 8 a.m. For more information, including complete scoring, click here.