Team Florida is made up of the state’s top 40 junior golfers, comprised 20 boys and 20 girls. With notable alumni like Luke Clanton, Brendan Valdes, and Alexa Pano,
many of these players go on to make a significant impact in collegiate and even professional golf. Kayla Bryant is aiming to become the next standout from this year’s group, hoping to follow in the footsteps of these accomplished athletes.
Starting from way back in the beginning, Kayla Bryant was introduced to the game by her father who gifted her a set of Barbie golf clubs when she was three years old. Two years later when she was five, she was teeing it up in her first tournament. “I remember my mom teed my golf ball up in my first ever tournament, and I picked it up and threw it down the fairway,” Bryant laughed as she reminisced on her early days in the game.
A lot has changed since that young girl first teed it up. Shortly after moving to Boca Raton, Bryant developed a lifelong friendship with another Team Florida alumni; Chloe Kovelesky. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without the help of Chloe,” Bryant said. “Growing up she was always a little bit better than me, and I used that to help develop my golf game.” Now with Kovelesky playing golf at Wake Forest and Bryant being committed to Florida State, they will be competitors in the ACC.
Kayla Bryant has become a force to be reckoned with in the junior game, coming off of a big win at the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship., Bryant took advantage of the poor weather and difficult golf course to beat a star-studded field.
Along with that win, Bryant has been on a record breaking win streak on the Florida Junior Tour. When told she has won every single FJT she has played in since September of 2023, she responded with, “I recently found that out. It is obviously really cool. I try not to pay attention to that kind of stuff. I like to just focus on the golf shot in front of me.”
Although she may dominate FJT’s, match play has seem to become Bryant’s specialty, holding one of the highest winning percentages in Junior Florida Cup history, as well as winning the Junior Amateur Match Play Championship at the age of 14. “I have grown to like match play so much because the strategy is so different from a normal individual golf tournament. You are also not out of the match after a bad hole, which makes it that much more competitive,” Bryant said.
After recently committing to Florida State University, Kayla Bryant took some time to reflect on her junior golf career. “Everything I have accomplished, I would not have been able to do without the FSGA. The players down here in Florida have given me a competitive edge.” Keep an eye out for Kayla and the rest of Team Florida in 2025!
