No one traveled further to compete for one of California's most coveted amateur titles than Grant Yerger, a junior at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas who earned the top seed in the 64-player match play field last weekend.
After turning in rounds of 71 at TPC Harding Park and 70 at The Presidio Golf Club, whispers could be heard over the pelting rain asking the same question, "Who is this kid?"
Yerger, who has family ties to the Bay Area, was the only underclassman on a powerful Westlake team last year that featured four players who earned Division I scholarships, including Jacob Sosa (Texas), Zach Kingsland (SMU), Grant Feldman (Creighton) and Sean-Karl Dobson (Stanford). Aided by Yerger's 1-under 71, Westlake captured its fifth consecutive UIL Class 6A championship last spring by a whopping 23 strokes at Legacy Hills Golf Club outside of Austin.
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Yerger is currently ranked 429th in the American Junior Golf Association rankings and tied for 10th at the Accenture NW Arkansas Junior in September. He continues a recent trend of talented juniors securing the top seed in The City. Just last year, Edan Cui, then a high school freshman at Crystal Springs Uplands School in San Mateo, finished first in the 36-hole qualifier held at TPC Harding Park and Lincoln Park Golf Courses.
Cui, who recently won AmateurGolf.com's Pacific Grove City Championship, earned the No. 7 seed this year after rounds of 69 and 76.
After competing in the Texas Cup Invitational this week at Tempest Golf Club in Gladewater, Yerger will travel back to San Francisco for his Round of 64 match on Saturday morning against another high school junior, No. 64 seed Arnold He of Fremont, Calif. The winner will advance to take on either Ethan Lu (Elk Grove) or Reid Buzby, a San Francisco native who played collegiate golf at Middlebury College in Vermont, on Sunday.
Vani Karimanal, a senior at Piedmont Hills High School, earned the top seed in the women's championship flight and will face 16-seed Varsha Ramachandran, 15, of San Jose in a first-round match on Saturday.
