65s by Choi & Deng Lead U.S. Girls Junior; McCauley Is T51 at +2

TARZANA, Calif. -- Bigger, stronger, faster is the inevitable progression in sports. And younger. At least, that seems to be the case in golf.

Kids who can even drive yet, or barely have their licenses, are showing up for PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour events -- and making cuts.

And in the U.S. Girls Junior Championship on Monday, 14-year-old Aphrodite Deng made seven birdies and one bogey at El Caballero Country Club on the way to a 6-under-par 65, and she shares the first-round lead with 17-year-old Kylee Choi. Choi, who lives in Murrieta, Calif., has committed to Pepperdine University for 2025. Deng who is from Short Hills, N.J., would be getting a lot of correspondence from college coaches, except that she won't graduate from high school until 2028. So the coaches can't talk to her, or contact her in any way, for another two years.

Choi has played in two U.S. Women's Opens already. She qualified for her first two years ago, when she was 15, and she made it again this year. On Monday, she got off to quick starts on both nines. She birdied the first and second holes, and she birdied three of the first four holes on the back nine. Her only bogey came at the 370-yard, par-4 fifth.

Deng birdied three of the odd-numbered holes on the front nine -- 3, 5 and 9 -- plus No. 8. On the back side, she made only one par on an even-numbered hole, the par-4 14th. She bogeyed the 10th, but went on to birdie the par-5 12th, the par-3 16th and the par-4 18th on her way to 65.

Kinsley Ni is one back in third place at 66. Natalie Yen and Athena Singh are tied for fouth at 67, and there is an eightsome right behind them, tied for sixth at 68.

Reese McCauley, the two-time Minnesota state high school champion from Inver Grove Heights, made three birdies in her round, but she also made a bogey and two doubles, one of them at the shortest hole on the course, the 128-yard, par-3 16th, and the other at the longest par 4, the 423-yard ninth. It added up to 73, and she's tied for 51st place. Sixty four will make the cut on Tuesday and earn places in the match-play portion of the tournament. McCauley was a quarterfinalist at the Girls Junior two years ago, and made it to the Round of 16 last year. As a result, she was exempt from qualifier.

The player who did qualify from Minnesota this year was Californian Gabriella Eifrig. Her father is from Edina, and she had trouble finding a Girls Junior qualifying site that fit her schedule. Ulltimately, she chose Minnesota and White Bear Yacht Club for her qualifier, and claimed medalist honors with a 5-under 67. She was 10 higher than that on Monday, however, with a 77. Eifrig doubled two of the first four holes on the front nine, and on the back nine she made her only two pars at the 10th and 11th. After that, she went bogey-birdie-bogey-bogey-boge-birdie-double.



U.S. Girls Junior Championship

At Caballero Country Club

Par 71, 6,365 yards

Tarzana, Calif.

First-round results

T1. Kylee Choi 65

T1. Aphrodite Deng 65

3. Kinsley Ni 66

T4. Natalie Yen 67

T4. Athena Singh 67

T6. Amelia Zalsman 68

T6. Kali Xiao 68

T6. Sophie Han 68

T6. Yuka Nishina 68

T6. Isabel Brozena 68

T6. Shyla Brown 68

T6. Rianne Malixi 68

T6. Katherine Ha 68

T51. Reese McCauley 73

T106. Gabriella Eifrig 77