Up and Coming Athletes to Watch, Boys Edition

3/27 CGC Staff

Players on our top-10 list garner a lot of attention, as they earned their spot by demonstrating consistent high-level play over a two-year span. While the top players typically remain on our list, the bottom five are at risk of being bumped by players who hit their competitive stride later in their junior career. We’ve taken a look at results in recent months to identify several players who have started scoring well in upper echelon events or have produced consistent results in regional competition. Keep your eye on this group of athletes as we head into the busy spring and summer season.

Preston Hage, Class of 2026, UNC commit: When Hage committed to the Tarheels this past October, we didn’t know much about his game. He showed some solid, if not spectacular play in open AJGA events in 2024, with one top-10 and two top-15 finishes, but struggled at higer profile events such as the Western Junior, Southern Junior, and the US Junior. His most notable finish through the summer of 2024 was third at the Carolinas Junior PGA Championship. Nonetheless, Coach Dibitetto saw promise in Hage, and his vision is proving to be correct. Hage began his consistent streak of play with a top-10 finish at the Bobby Chapman Invitational and followed that with a second-place finish at the prestigious Junior Jones Cup in a solid field. Since then, his 2025 has started off very well, with a top-10 finish at the stellar-field AJGA Simplify Boys Championship and 15th at the Dustin Johnson World Junior. He recently took top billing at the TYGA North State High School Challenge, ahead of two of our top-10 ranked 2025 players. He continues to rack up points in our ranking system and should challenge for a spot in our top-10 of the class of 2026 if he continues his solid play.

Edan Cui, Class of 2025, Stanford signee: Cui had always been in the conversation of talented players in the class of 2025, but suffered an ACL tear that kept him out of competition for several months as he rehabbed. He began showing signs of his prior form at the 2024 US Junior Amateur, with a 16th place finish in stroke play and an appearance in the round of 16 in match play. Since then, Cui won an AJGA open event by five strokes and finished in the top-10 at the Bobby Chapman and the Dustin Johnson World Junior. His most notable finish was third at the AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions in a top-tanked field in November, and Cui will hope his trending golf game will translate into additional top finishes before joining the Cardinal.

Adam Anderson, Class of 2025, Oklahoma signee: Another athlete who piques our curiosity is Anderson, an Oklahoma signee who expects to join the Sooners this fall. Anderon has risen from the 70s to 37th in the class of 2025 on JGS due to his strong play since July of 2024. Anderson, like his future Sooner teammate Clark Van Gaalen (2024), has solely played in California in open AJGA and Toyota Tour Cup events through his junior year of high school. Since the end of July, Anderson has been a model of consistency, with two Toyota Tour Cup wins, one top-5 and one top-10, and two AJGA open top-3 finishes. We’ll be interested to see if Anderson branches out into more elite events and how his game will stack up against top-ranked competitors in his class. If his 11/15 rounds under par since the end of July are any indication, he may fare well.

Max Emberson, Class of 2026, Oklahoma commit: Coach Hybl of Oklahoma seems to like dipping into the California talent pool recently, as his 2026 commit Emberson has a similar profile to Anderson. Emberson also competes mainly in Pacific coast open AJGA and Toyota Tour Cup events, with consistent results. Since April of 2024, he racked up three runner-up Toyota Tour Cup finishes and two AJGA open 3rd place results. Emberson notched a top-15 result at the IMG Junior World Championship and a 2nd place finish at the Eddie Hogan Cup. In thirty competitive rounds in multi-day junior tournaments in the past year, he carded 17 rounds under par. Similar to Anderson, we’d love to see how Emberson competes against national competition in 2025.