The AJGA Mercy Health Foundation Junior All Star kicks off tomorrow at Mill Creek Golf Course in Boardman Ohio (Click for story and more).

Jordan and Super Mom drove almost 7 hours and 400 miles west today to be ready for B’s 7:40 am T time at Mill Creek tomorrow morning. Though it is a qualifier for a number of the girls playing, Jordan has already been accepted in to the tournament that begins on Tuesday so it will be an extra practice round for her. The top 10% tomorrow will earn two AJGA performance stars that do have significant value for gaining acceptance into future AJGA tournaments. The top 3 finishers in the qualifier will earn spots for those not already on the tournament roster. Yes, this stuff is super confusing but the important takeaways for tomorrow are; 1) Jordan will still be in the tournament regardless of how she plays tomorrow, and 2) finishing in the top 10% will be good for her.

After checking into their hotel Mommy and B found a great Greek restaurant in Youngstown where they had dinner.

Dinner this evening in Youngstown.

The preparation and logistics for these roadtrips (Jordan has about 20 per year at this point, 12 on this summer’s tour) is chaos that only Julie can make look easy. First are the choosing of the tournaments, then the applications and or qualifiers, then the planning and reservations for the hotels, flights, and rental cars, the coordination with the coaches and caddy’s, and this is before the first swing. For this tournament there are five days of golf which means 6 golf outfits and 5 pairs of golf shoes minimum. The temperature for this week will vary between 48 degrees tomorrow morning, and the heat wave that will sweep through on Wednesday with temperatures topping 96. This means many additional layers and even wool caps. On top of this, there needs to be 5 pairs of pajamas, lounging clothing for during the day, and dinner outfits. Also, there needs to be lots of specialty food items as Jordan has Celiac and can not eat gluten. In many of the places Jordan has been playing this is a new concept and these products are impossible to find. Groceries to make sandwiches for pre-game for Jordan plus a case of water and half a case of Gatorade also need to be sourced and packed. Add in the golf equipment, toiletries, medications, Jordan’s pushcart for the clubs, umbrellas, rain gear, and at least a small bag for supermom and you have a very full car load. Pictures of the loading are below.

This explanation was prompted by a simple comment that was made to us today at our friends Todd and Dawn’s son Erik’s graduation party that went something like this, ”Golf tournaments must be so easy compared to when my kid went to a state final for field hockey one time in high school.” This bloggers answer was, “Wow, that does sound difficult.”

One final note is that Julie has only 1 or 2 days often between tournaments to get everything out of the cases, washed, replenished and replaced, mended and fixed and repacked before the next tournament often hundreds and even thousands of miles apart.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Below is the leaderboard for tomorrow’s qualifier if anyone wants to follow along. We will post the one for Tuesday, the start of the actual tournament, on Monday evening when it is released. Monday is the official practice round. Thank you for your interest in Jordan and the incredible support you show for our whole family.

https://www.ajga.org/tournaments/2022/qualifier-mercy-health-foundation-junior-all-star/leaderboard#girls