A year after finishing fourth as the top seed, Team Utah’s longtime core came back and won the 2026 17u PGA Jr. League Championship.
If your junior golfer has ever had a season end short of where they hoped, Team Utah’s Sunday at Twin Warriors Golf Club is worth a read. One year after earning the No. 1 seed and finishing fourth, the Lehi-based team won the 2026 17u PGA Jr. League Championship, and Ryder Huish rolled in the clinching putt on the ninth green. On his birthday.
Per PGA of America, Team Utah beat Team Florida (Orlando) 7.5 to 4.5 in the championship match on October 25 in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico. Weather rolled in late, but Utah had already banked enough points to close it out. The team reached the final with an 8.5 to 3.5 semifinal win over fourth-seeded Team Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh), and Team Texas (Austin) took third with a 9-3 win over Pennsylvania.
The win tied a bow on years of work. Ryder and teammate Jordan Ofahengaue were both on coach Tele Wightman’s 2021 13u PGA Jr. League Championship team, and Wightman told PGA of America that Ryder’s pairing delivered the clinching point in both title runs. He said this core has played together for five years, through plenty of highs and tough losses. Jordan called one more year together “a blessing.”
Team Florida brought its own story to the final. Coach Kaden Wrisner, a PGA Associate and a former PGA Jr. League player, was a first-time head coach at the Championship, and he credited Utah with simply making more putts in a format where anything can happen. Jeronimo Esteve reached the title match in his first year of PGA Jr. League. For Texas, coach John Sosa said a change in approach before the third-place match gave his team a new spark.
Rounding out the field: Team New Jersey (Haworth) was fifth, Team Connecticut (Middlefield) sixth, Team Illinois (Schaumburg) seventh, Team California (Los Angeles) eighth, Team Georgia (Newnan) ninth, Team Kansas (Leawood) 10th, Team Ohio (Columbus) 11th and Team Gateway (Quincy, Ill.) 12th. In the Twin Warriors Fiesta de Tamaya, a two-person side event, Ohio’s Emmet Lattavo and Christian Yoder won at 8-under (28). Georgia’s Stockton Hay and Noah Robinson finished second at 7-under (29) after a scorecard playoff, and Noah made his first hole-in-one on the 153-yard 13th with a 50 wedge.
The Hub’s view, and this is our opinion: the scoreline is the headline, but the 2025 finish is the story. Utah came into last year’s Championship as the top qualifier and left in fourth. This year, largely the same group came back and finished the job. That is the junior golf journey in miniature. A disappointing week is not a verdict on a player or a team. It is information, and what you do with it shapes what comes next.
So what does this mean for your family? Team events like PGA Jr. League give juniors things individual stroke play can’t, like playing for teammates, trusting a partner and handling match-play pressure when every putt swings a point. Treat those weeks as part of your Roadmap, not a break from it. After a tough finish, write down what you would change, the way Sosa’s team reset before its consolation match. Then go back and test it.
Keep an eye on PGA Jr. League, where this group got its start as 13-and-unders, and on the junior golf talent coming out of Utah. You can follow how players across the country stack up in the JGH Rankings.
PC: Sam Wasson, PGA of America