Forest Highlands Golf Club, will host the 66th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, conducted by the United States Golf Association. The Club will be welcoming 156 young women golfers and their families, as well as college coaches, USGA officials and national and local media, including Golf Channel, to Flagstaff, Arizona.

More than 1,000 young women are expected to apply to play in this prestigious national championship. The final 156 players will qualify by advancing through 18 holes of sectional qualifying at one of 35 sites across the U.S. The championship is open to amateur female golfers who will not have reached their 18th birthday by July 25, 2014, and who have a Handicap Index not exceeding 18.4. Entries will close at 5pm EDT on June 4, 2014. Sectional qualifying, played over 18 holes, will be conducted between June 9 and July 1, 2014. Pinnacle Peak Country Club in Scottsdale, AZ will host qualifying on Wednesday, June 18, 12014.

The championship will be hosted by Forest Highlands Golf Club (Meadow Course) which will be set up at 6,783 yards and will play to a par of 36-36-72. The Meadow Course was designed by Tom Weiskopf and opened in 1999.

Free admission with no tickets required is offered to the public/spectators who are encouraged to attend. Attain directions by visiting www.fhgc.com.

Schedule of Events: Monday, July 21–First round, stroke play; Tuesday–Second round, stroke play (field reduced to 64 players for match play); Wednesday–First round, match play; Thursday–Second and Third rounds, match play; Friday–Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds, match play; Sunday, July 26–36 hole championship final, match play.

2013 champion, Gabriella Then and runner-up Lakareber Abe have turned 18 and are no longer eligible for the championship.

The championship has helped launch the careers of such players as Mickey Wright, who won in 1952, and later captured four U.S. Women’s Open Championships, and JoAnne Gunderson Carner, who won the first of her eight USGA titles in the 1956 Girls’ Junior. Nancy Lopez won in 1972 and 1974, interrupted in 1973 by Amy Alcott, who went on to win the Women’s Open in 1980. Other notable past champions include Heather Farr in 1982, two-time Women’s Open champion Inbee Park, three-time Girls’ Junior and three-time Women’s Open victor Hollis Stacy and current LPGA star Lexi Thompson.

The U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship was established in 1949, one year after the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship. Philadelphia (PA) Country Club, one of the oldest clubs in the nation, hosted the first championship on its Bala Course, which opened in 1891, three years before the founding of the USGA.

While victory in the U.S. Girls’ Junior does not guarantee a successful career in women’s golf, Girls’ Junior champions have won the U.S. Women’s Amateur 11 times and the U.S. Women’s Open 12 times. Additionally, 19 champions have gone on to represent the USA on the Curtis Cup Team through 2014.

For further information, visit www.usgirlsjunior.org.