More than halfway through the second round of last month’s Sahalee Players Championship, Chris Zambri allowed a tantalizing thought to race through his mind. The head coach of the U.S. National Development Program had tried to minimize expectations as five members of the U.S. National Junior team were making history by playing for the first time in a collegiate event. But as Zambri looked at the leaderboard at challenging Sahalee Country Club outside Seattle, a course that had hosted men’s and women’s majors, he saw his team tied for second—in a field that included Texas, Arizona State, Florida, North Carolina and UCLA—and a smile came to his face.
“Suddenly, I was like, ‘Wow, we’re in a position, if we could contend, to maybe win this golf tournament,’” he said.
It was a feeling Zambri prized during his days coaching the USC men’s college team from 2006 to 2020 and as an assistant with the Pepperdine men’s team from 2020 to 2023. Now it was one he hoped his juniors—Tyler Watts, Luke Colton, Tyler Mawhinney, Jessy Huebner and Robin Banerjee—would embrace as they participated in one of the more unique opportunities since being named to the team.
This, of course, was the point of playing in the event in the first place. The National Junior Team was established in 2023 as an extension of the USGA’s launch of the USNDP. The mission was to help American golfers in their progress from aspiring players to successful ones. Suffice it to say, gaining experience against more seasoned college players would help serve the purpose.
A bit of serendipity was needed for National Junior team to get the chance to take part in the event in the first place. Last December, University of Washington men’s coach Alan Murray approached Zambri, telling him that a school had to drop out of the Sahalee event, and he was looking to fill the spot. Murray thought of Zambri because Washington had previously invited the Taiwan and Swedish national teams (the later featuring a young Ludvig Aberg) to compete in tournaments the Huskies had hosted.
“It was an opportunity for the tournament to set a little bit of history,” Murray told Golfweek last month. “Everyone that hosts a tournament is trying so hard to put on the best show possible and get the strongest field possible and do something unique. And this was kind of all of those things rolled into one.”
When Zambri accepted Murray’s invite, the two presented the idea to the school’s compliance office. After several months of conversations with NCAA officials to determine how things would work—notably the team would not count in the official results that college programs used to determine post-season eligibility—Murray and Zambri got the go ahead to play.
In August, Zambri zeroed in on the lineup he would take to the event. Of the 10 boys on the National Junior team at the start of the year, four were off to college this fall. The plan was to bring the remaining six to Sahalee with five playing for the team and one as an individual, but when Philip Dunham was sidelined with an injury, Zambri’s travel team was set with Watts, Colton, Mawhinney, Huebner and Banerjee.
Exactly how they would fare was uncertain, although Zambri was optimistic his group could hold its own. All five ranked among the top 450 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings—with Watts and Colton inside the top 35. Watts, a 17-year-old from Huntsville, Ala., had won the the summer-long Elite Amateur Series title after taking a victory at the Sunnehanna Amateur and a runner-up at the North & South. Colton, 17, from Frisco, Texas, was a semifinalist at this year’s U.S. Junior. Mawhinney, 17, from Fleming Island, Fla., won the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball title with Will Hartman in May.
Zambri was determined to approach the event just as he had when overseeing the Trojans. “We got in, we played the practice round together,” Zambri said. “We had a kind of a course breakdown in terms of strategies of par 4s and par 5s, which distance do we wanted to hit it and on what line. We talked about that as a group, and it was good because the kids were really open and they listened.”
From the time Zambri had spent with the players during training camps and watching them compete individually at junior and amateur tournaments, he knew they were all very skilled. What this offered was the chance for him to work with the players directly on the strategic approach that top-level golfers use to prepare for tournaments, particularly on championship-level courses.
“We just wanted to give them a way to do things, the way pros do it and high-level college players,” Zambri said. “I’m sure some juniors are super-prepared. But they don’t [necessarily] hit many shots in the greens and miss greens and then say I wonder if that’s going be OK.” Zambri explained that top players find the answers to those questions about a course ahead of time. “So that was, another really cool thing that we got to do that week.”
Chris Zambri said the chance to coach the U.S. National Junior team in a college event provided a chance to teach his players how elite golfers prepare for big events.
Logan Whitton
The two-day tournament followed a 36-18 hole format that also exposed the players to some of the rigors unique to college events. “They got to see what it’s like to wake up at like 5 and then not get back to your room to like 8, which happens a lot in college.”
Through the first round, the team was in fifth place among the 12 teams, with Watts leading the way. Zambri’s moment of excitement when the team flirted with the lead came that afternoon, the squad ending up in fourth place after shooting the third-best team score of Round 2.
The team lingered in the final round, a few breaks away from factoring before ultimately finishing 12 shots back of Arizona State in fourth place. Among the schools they beat were North Carolina, Arizona, Pepperdine and Florida. Watts was the top performer, shooting a one-under 215 to finish in a tie for fourth out of the 71 competitors in the field.
“Being able to compare our games to some of the best college golfers and being able to compete against the best college programs in the country was amazing,” Watts said. “We had an unbelievable experience on a great golf course and challenging setup. I hope that this opportunity comes around again for juniors in the future because my experience was nothing short of special.”
Huebner finished T-20, Mawhinney T-33, Banerjee T-41 and Colton T-48.
Zambri found the moments of team camaraderie the most satisfying, particularly when they included a teaching element. “I think they all learned a lot about what it looks like at a really high level to play golf, to play tournament golf in big-time conditions,” Zambri said. “Because it was big time. The greens were mean. They were asking at dinner, ‘Coach, have you ever seen greens that firm?’ And I was like, ‘yeah I have.’ I mean, I don’t think they believed me, but I said, listen, … some of these events you watch on TV like Bay Hill or Players or Augusta, this is what it’s like. I thought, those were really eye-opening experiences for them.
“They had to play golf in a certain way that that they don’t do enough of. They don’t do enough of avoiding short-siding themselves,” Zambri said. “They got to see a brand of golf that you know they rarely see, and to me that was huge because it it’s hard you know we’ve been trying to make those points since we started this program and it can fall on deaf ears if.”
Zambri hopes he can do this again, not just with the boys team but with the girls who play for the National Junior team as well; he is working with the NCAA currently to finalize playing in a women’s college event this spring.
It’s competitive events like this that Zambri thinks can have the biggest benefit for the USDNP moving forward.
“These weeks,” he said, “have seemed to be the most fruitful in terms of development, of learning and being able to pass along something new to them.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
