Cheboygan’s PJ Maybank III Tops Junior Boys’ Points List

By Greg Johnson

PJ Maybank III of Cheboygan feels he played consistent golf through the summer, but that his best stretch of play came in the U.S. Junior Amateur and the Michigan Junior State Amateur in back-to-back weeks in late July.

“Going there, playing well, and making it to match play in the U.S. Junior Amateur, losing in the first round, but then coming home and winning the Michigan Junior, being the (stroke play) medalist and then winning it again in match play, those were my best back-to-back weeks of the summer,” he said.

“I had this vision of the U.S. Junior Amateur, my first USGA event, and playing in it at Country Club of North Carolina (Pinehurst, N.C.) blew it out of the water. What a great experience. Then to come home and play well the whole week at the Michigan Junior was something I really wanted to accomplish again.”

Maybank, 16 and an online junior student through the Cheboygan Schools, has been named the Golf Association of Michigan Junior Boys’ Player of the Year for the second consecutive season. He is also the reigning Mr. Golf in the high school ranks.

Maybank, a GAM member through Hidden River Golf & Casting Club in Brutus and Youth on Course Michigan, won two AJGA tournaments over the summer – the AJGA Coca-Cola Junior Championship at Boyne Highlands Resort in Harbor Springs and the Randy Wise Junior Open at Spring Meadows Country Club in Linden. With his second consecutive Michigan Junior State Amateur title he finished with 1,770 Player of the Year points.

Justin Sui of Lake Orion and a member through Youth on Course Michigan finished second with 856 points. Sui was the runner-up to Maybank in the Michigan Junior State Amateur and also the Coca-Cola Junior. Lorenzo Pinili of Rochester Hills and Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club, the winner of the GAM Junior Invitational, was third with 793 points.