Orlando, FL. CHAMPION! Champion of Champions. Jordan beats 85 tournament winners of The Hurricane Junior Golf Tour to earn the title of Champion of Champions for 2024. (Click for pictures and more).

This will require some explanation as there is history here for Jordan. Four years ago when she started playing golf, one of her first tournaments was the Hurricane Junior Golf Tours (from now on, the HJGT) New York Junior Open. It took place in October of 2020 and Jordan competed in the 13 and under division and came in 3rd (there were only 3 kids signed up) with Coach Jerry Yochum on the bag. After that tournament she was told that since she came in the top 5, she had earned a spot to compete in the HJGT National Championship in Orlando in December. Now, remember, this was during Covid and she was at school remotely so we thought why not go down and see if she was actually competitive? Her golf grandfather, Allen Sirkin offered to fly her down in his airplane, and her uncle David Sirkin offered to carry her bag. Dad was to join her for this fun adventure and it was supposed to be 5 days in total. Then, it got complicated….We got the idea that hey, since we were going to be there anyway, why not see if we could find a coach in FL and spend a few weeks?

To make a long story just a little shorter, after extensive research, Coach Carl Rabito topped the list, and after seeing Jordan’s swing on a FaceTime video call it was decided that Jordan would come down to FL the week before the tournament and spend some time with Carl to get her tuned up for that tournament. B had her first lesson with Carl on Saturday November 21st 2020. It took until Sunday November 22nd 2020 for Carl to tell dad, “I know you came down to play this tournament, but she is not ready for prime time. She is going to get killed and that will not help her confidence. Wait until next year.” After some discussion it was decided that Jordan would forgo the tournament that year.

The next year, December of 2021 Jordan played it and finished in 15th place shooting 82-76. In December of 2022, she came in 16th place shooting 76-78. In 2022, HJGT also added the new category for the National Championship weekend called “The Tournament of Champions” thereby segregating those that had a finish in 2nd through 5th place from those who had a 1st place win. Last year, Jordan did not have a first place victory so again she just played the National Championship for a third time and shot 71-73 to take 3rd place.

This year was Jordan’s last opportunity to compete in the HJGT’s National Championship Weekend and with her first place win in February in the Advent Health HJGT Orlando Junior Open qualified for the Tournament of Champions made up of nothing but Champions from this year’s HJGT tournaments. Jordan shot 73-70 to take the Championship. She shot not only the low score combined for the tournament, she also shot the tournament low round today at -2, and was the only player with a combined score under par (-1) for the tournament. This will most probably be her last HJGT tournament and she picked quite a way to exit.

Final Leaderboard

Today was no “cookie” as Carl likes to say. B had to earn it. At the turn, she was even, 3 strokes out of the lead in 5th place with 9 left to play after dunking her second shot into the lake resulting in her second bogey in a row (she also bogeyed 8). She would play the rest of the tournament bogey free sinking two more clutch 🐥’s on 10 & 12 to hold the lead shooting -2 on the back. In the end, today’s round would be 2 bogeys, 12 pars, and 4🐥’s.

Jordan, Coach Carl, and the Championship trophy

Selfy of B, CC and dad

The sweet taste of victory

Jordan with the second place finisher, her friend Elena Zreik (amazing play Elena, you rock) and the three girls who tied for third place.

One final pic of our champion

That’s all for now. Jordan will fix up a few rough edges with coach Carl tomorrow before she and SuperMom pack up the car and drive to Coral Springs for the Woman’s Dixie Amateur Invitational. This promises to be a much more difficult tournament as the players are predominately D1 college players on their winter break. This will be a 72 hole tournament contested over four days. Tuesday and Wednesday are practice rounds followed by 4 days of competition beginning on Thursday. Update to come on Wednesday night with T time, link to the leaderboard etc. Many thanks once again for all of the texts and emails, comments and calls. It means a ton to Jordan and her support crew.

Cut and pasted and used without permission from the Dixie Am Website