Bay Area's Kailer Stone shares U.S. Junior lead; Charlie Woods fails to break 80

Kailer Stone has won back-to-back NCGA Junior Championships, including earlier this month at Lake Merced in San Francisco.

The 17-year-old from Alameda, California, is hoping to return to the Bay Area next month for the U.S. Amateur at Olympic Club as the champion of another prestigious junior championship.

Stone joined China’s Qiyou Wu in shooting 5-under 66, the leading score in Monday’s opening round of stroke play at the 77th U.S. Junior Amateur in Dallas. Stone, a Pepperdine commit, carded five birdies and no bogeys at Trinity Forest, which played over two shots tougher than its companion course, Brook Hollow.

Mason Howell, the Georgia commit who qualified for the U.S. Open earlier this summer, had the best score at Brook Hollow, a 3-under 67, along with fellow Georgia native Trace Carter.

Top-ranked junior Miles Russell shot 67 at Trinity Forest while defending U.S. Junior champion Trevor Gutschewski posted 68 at the former home of the PGA Tour’s Byron Nelson event. The player Gutschewski beat in the final last July at Oakland Hills, Tennessee commit Tyler Watts, also shot 68 at Trinity Forest.

Other notables currently inside the match-play cutline include reigning U.S. Amateur Four-Ball champion and Vanderbilt commit Tyler Mawhinney (68-TF), North Carolina sophomore and Ukraine’s Misha Golod (69-TF), Auburn signee Logan Reilly (71-TF), Vanderbilt commit Luke Colton (71-TF), Clemson signee Jackson Byrd (71-TF), Vanderbilt signee Michael Riebe (71-BH), Oklahoma State signee Henry Guan (71-BH) and Daniil Sokolov (71-TF), who is the first player from Qatar to play in a USGA championship.

Among those outside the cut line at the midway point of stroke-play qualifying are Cameron Kuchar (74-TF) and Charlie Woods (81-BH). Both of their dads, Matt and Tiger, were out watching their sons’ rounds on Monday.

Woods, who missed the cut in last year’s U.S. Junior debut, carded birdies on Nos. 18 and 9, but he also had four double bogeys, including three on the back nine, his opening side. He is currently T-242 out of 264 players and nine shots out of what would be a 30-for-8 playoff to get into the Round of 64.