Last November, Suzie Tran of Poulsbo, Wash. fired a final round 7-under par 65 to win the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship at Koasati Pines at Coushatta Resort in Kinder, La. The three-day tournament was for players 14-18 years old. Tran’s final round included seven birdies and 11 pars to give her a one-stroke victory over Isabella McCauley from Minnesota.

With that victory, Suzie earned an exemption into the upcoming Circling Raven Championship, an Epson Tour “Road to the LPGA” tournament being held August 26-28, 2022 at Circling Raven Golf Club in Worley, Idaho.

Tran will be competing with all the other young professional golfers competing on the developmental tour, vying for a spot on next year’s LPGA Tour.

Tran has already been noticed by the University of Washington and Gonzaga University golf programs for her excellence in golf, and is possibly headed toward a D-I scholarship in the sport at some point. Though college coaches cannot comment on high school players, they know who she is.

In the 2019 Washington Women’s Amateur, Tran, competing as a 13-year-old against mostly collegiate players, held the first round lead before finishing third in the championship. She also finished third in the 2021 Washington Women’s Amateur.

Tran won medalist honors, with partner Lauryn Nguyen, in qualifying for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, and in August 2021 Tran won her first AJGA event, the AJGA Junior All-Star at Stanford.

She is now a rising high school junior, being home-schooled by her father, who is a math teacher at Poulsbo Middle School.