Lehi Sports
Lehi-based 17u golf team earns top seed, ends 4th at PGA Jr. Nationals
Beky Beaton / Lehi Free Press
Region 11 champion Team Utah was the top qualifier at the 2025 PGA Jr. League Championship at Twin Warriors Golf Club in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico in the 12-team field. The national tournament was played Oct. 23-26.
However, after an unprecedented four-team draw in the semifinals was broken by a scorecard tiebreaker, the Utah team based at Thanksgiving Point ended up in the third-place match and lost to Team Florida (Orlando) 6.5 – 5.5 to get fourth place.
Coached by Tele Wightman, PGA, Team Utah includes D’Adiddas Notoa (15), Jordan Ofahengaue (15) and Crue Harward (14), all members of the Lehi High School boys golf team.
Additional team members include 6A state champion Blake Brown (15) and Ryder Huish (15) of Lone Peak; Drew Wilson (14), who plays at 6A state champion Corner Canyon; plus Jace Benson (15) of 3A state champion Morgan and Mack Herzog (15) of Ogden.
On Day 1, Team Illinois (Lemont) took command of the leaderboard with a 41-under par performance in stroke play. Team Utah (Lehi), who finished runner-up in last year’s 17u PGA Jr. League Championship, was just behind Team Illinois with a 39-under performance.
“We played great, and I’m really proud of them,” said Wightman. “We got off to a really great start at 21-under on our front nine today. We had some timely eagles, and we made some good putts. There were some lulls in the round, but the eagles kick-started the team. We had some good momentum.”
Team Florida (Orlando) and Team Texas (Farmers Branch) were tied for third on the leaderboard at 38-under.
On Day 2, Team Utah took the solo lead early with a 26-under par aggregate team total through their first nine holes, ending the day with a 10-shot cushion at 90-under par.
“I’ve seen these kids play some good golf, but today was incredible golf,” said Wightman. “Our four pairings were 17-under, 17-under, 17-under and 15-under [today]. We shot 25-under on the back nine, and we had 10 eagles within the team. Just unbelievably good golf today.”
Team Florida and Team Illinois finished tied at 80-under and Florida got the No. 2 seed with a tiebreaker. Texas came in fourth at 78-under to round out the semifinal field. The format changes from stroke play to match play for the final two rounds.
“Match play is a whole different animal, and the four teams playing tomorrow are all good,” Wightman said. “Getting off to a good start is key and so is continuing to apply pressure. It’s really just about keeping the momentum we’ve created.”
In a bizarre turn of events, all four semifinal teams tied with scores of 6.00 in match play. A tiebreaker formula dropped the top two seeds to the third-place contest.
“The tiebreaker is total holes won by each team during the match,” Wightman explained. “We lost 9-8 in that tiebreaker.
“It came down to the last putt in the last match. The last player from Texas had a 25-foot putt on the last hole. His partner had already missed. If he missed it, we won. But he made it for Texas to win the last hole. That tied the match overall and Texas then took the tiebreaker.
“The team played unbelievably well all week. Texas just made one more putt than we did,” the coach concluded.
