Drive, Chip and Putt Age Divisions Explained

Drive, Chip and Putt splits competitors into four age bands, 7-9, 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15, and separately by gender, for eight divisions in total: Boys and Girls 7-9, Boys and Girls 10-11, Boys and Girls 12-13, and Boys and Girls 14-15. A competitor only ever plays against others in their own age band and gender, so a 9-year-old never measures a drive against a 15-year-old.

For how entry and scoring work across those divisions, see our Drive, Chip and Putt qualifying guide. This guide is about how the brackets themselves are built.

The rule that catches families off guard: a competitor's division is set by their age on the date of the National Finals for that competitive year, not their age on the day they actually play a local qualifier.

For example, take a golfer who is 9 years old when they enter their local qualifier in early summer. If they will turn 10 before the following spring's National Finals date, they are placed in the 10-11 division for that entire competitive year, not the 7-9 division, even though they were 9 on the day they actually played the local round. The reverse also happens: a golfer who is technically 10 at their local qualifier but has not yet turned 10 by the Finals date stays in the 7-9 division.

Know which division applies before entering, especially for a golfer whose birthday sits between the local qualifier and the National Finals date. It can place them in a different, and sometimes tougher, bracket than their age on qualifying day would suggest.

Most junior tours scale the course up as players get older, longer yardage, tougher tee boxes, for older divisions. Our junior golf age divisions guide covers how that works across U.S. Kids, HJGT, and the AJGA. Drive, Chip and Putt is a different kind of event, and the comparison does not map cleanly. There is no course to scale: the three stations are purpose-built for the competition rather than played as a normal golf hole, so what a division faces is a set of fixed distances, not a tee box.

At the National Finals those distances are published: three drives down a fairway roughly 40 yards wide where only shots finding the fairway score, three chips from 10 to 15 yards scored by proximity rings, and three putts from 6, 15, and 30 feet. Nine attempts, 10 points available at each station, 30 points maximum.

Because the test is built around precision at fixed distances rather than adapting to lies and wind, the age bands do most of their work simply by grouping similar-aged competitors against each other. If you need the exact station setup for a specific division at a specific qualifying site, confirm it against the official championship site — local qualifying is run by host sections, and that is the level of detail worth hearing from the organizer rather than from us.

Look closely at the four bands and one is different from the other three: 7-9 spans three birth years (7, 8, and 9), while 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15 each span two. A two-year jump matters less physically at 14 versus 15 than it does at 7 versus 9, when coordination, strength, and even attention span change quickly from one year to the next.

Because the youngest band is the widest, a golfer who just turned 7 is realistically facing competitors up to two and a half years older and more developed within the very same division. That is not a flaw in the format, but it is worth knowing so a first-year 7-year-old's result gets read in context rather than treated as a verdict on their game. The gap narrows naturally in the older bands as the two-year spread matters less.

For what actually tends to separate scores within each band once you are there, see the realistic-expectations section of our qualifying guide. And if the goal for a young or first-year competitor is simply to enjoy the day rather than chase a result, our Foundations stage guide covers what actually matters at this age.