RANCHO MIRAGE, California – The ANA Junior Inspiration announced Megan Furtney of South Elgin, Illinois as the Chicago Gateway City Qualifier and in her honor ANA’s Gateway City Grant has donated $5,000 to the Illinois Junior Golf Association (IJGA).
The ANA Junior Inspiration, a partnership between the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) and All Nippon Airways (ANA), will be held March 28-31, at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. The AJGA invitation-only field will be tested for 36 holes on the Pete Dye Challenge Course before playing the final round on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course with LPGA Legends. During the final round, each pairings group will feature one LPGA legend and two juniors. Juniors will compete for the stroke-play title and participate in a fun competition among pairings groups in a best-ball format with the legends.
Forty-eight of the top junior girls in the world earned entry into the ANA Junior Inspiration, an official AJGA Invitational. Juniors, such as Furtney, qualified through the “ANA Priority Mileage” point system, which is based on the Rolex AJGA Rankings, with 11 spots given to the top qualifiers in ANA’s gateway cities of Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver and Washington D.C.
Furtney is No. 37 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings and will be making her second appearance at the ANA Junior Inspiration. Furtney has committed to play golf for Duke in the fall.
After qualifying as a representative of one of ANA’s gateway cities, each Gateway City Qualifier chose a golf association in their Gateway City to receive a $5,000 grant from the ANA Junior Inspiration.
“This contribution from ANA and the AJGA means a great deal to the Illinois Junior Golf Association,” said IJGA Executive Director Jordan Abdel-Haq. “Grants of this amount are very rare for our association and they are so impactful in helping us achieve our mission of ‘Better People through Junior Golf.’ With so many professional golf events raising tremendous sums of money for deserving charities, it is wonderful to see ANA recognize the need to support state and regional junior golf associations to ensure the health and future of our game. We also would like to thank Megan Furtney for selecting the IJGA as her designated beneficiary. Megan was generous enough to select our Association for a second time in this way, previously choosing the MAJGT in 2017. She has had an incredible junior golf career and is a fine young woman that will undoubtedly do great things at Duke University. “
