Drive, Chip and Putt Qualifying: How to Enter and What to Expect

Drive, Chip and Putt is a free, nationwide junior skills competition run jointly by the Masters Tournament, the USGA, and the PGA of America. It is not a round of golf. Each competitor takes three drives, three chips, and three putts, nine shots in all, and the combined score decides who advances. The whole thing points at one payoff: the age-group champions who make it through play those same skills at Augusta National Golf Club on the Sunday before the Masters.

Drive, Chip and Putt is open to boys and girls who are at least 7 years old and no older than 15 on the date of the National Finals. Note that age is set by the finals date, not the qualifier date, which matters for a kid with a birthday in between.

Competitors are split by gender and into four age bands: 7-9, 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15. You compete only against players of your age and gender, so a nine-year-old is never measuring drives against a fifteen-year-old.

Registration is online only, and a parent or guardian must complete the entry form. Kids do not sign themselves up. A few rules catch families off guard every year.

• Entries close five days before the local qualifier. Late applications are rejected automatically, with no exceptions.
• There is no on-site or day-of registration. If you did not enter online in time, you do not play.
• A participant may enter only one local qualifier. Registering for more than one results in automatic disqualification, so do not line up backup dates.

Enter at drivechipandputt.com once local registration opens, usually in the spring. For many kids this is a first taste of competition, and our first golf tournament checklist covers what to bring and expect.

Drive, Chip and Putt is a four-stage ladder, and every level is free.

• Local qualifying runs across all 50 states, generally May through July.
• Subregional qualifying follows at roughly 60 sites, generally July and August.
• Regional qualifying narrows to 10 sites, generally September and October.
• National Finals is held at Augusta National Golf Club the Sunday before the Masters.

Advancement is earned fresh at each stage and scores do not carry over. From a local qualifier, the top three point earners in each age and gender division move up to subregional. From subregional, the top two in each division advance to regional. Each regional then crowns the division champion who goes to Augusta. Miss the cut at any level and the season ends there, but entry reopens the next year.

Each skill is three attempts, and each is scored on its own terms.

• Drive: players hit toward a marked grid on the fairway, and a drive must come to rest inside the grid to count. Accuracy matters as much as distance, so a long ball that sails out of bounds earns nothing while a shorter, straight one scores.
• Chip: from a set spot off the green, players chip toward the hole and are scored on how close the ball finishes, measured by scoring rings around the cup.
• Putt: players putt from set distances and, like chipping, score on proximity to the hole.

The three skill scores combine into one total, and the highest combined total in each division wins. Exact point values and station distances are set by Drive, Chip and Putt and posted on its rules page, so check the current year's format before you practice to it.

Do not walk in expecting a holed putt or a chip-in, because that is not what wins. Consistency across all three skills is what moves a kid up the ladder.

• 7-9: the drive grid is the great equalizer. Kids who make solid contact and keep it straight often out-score bigger hitters who spray it, and a chip that stays near the hole goes a long way.
• 10-11 and 12-13: fields get deeper and margins shrink. One strong skill can carry a kid at the local level, but from subregional up you need to be at least competent in all three.
• 14-15: the sharpest band. Many entrants already play competitive junior golf, so raw skill is high and winners rarely have a weak leg.

Across every band, the drive tends to spread the field more than chipping or putting, because distance combined with the in-bounds requirement separates players faster than proximity does.

Because you get exactly one local qualifier, choose it deliberately.

• Location over prestige: every local qualifier feeds the same ladder, so the nearest site is usually the right one. There is no advantage to traveling for a supposedly better local event.
• Date and readiness: pick a date that gives your kid time to get comfortable with the three stations, but do not wait so long that nearby sites fill or close. Registration shuts five days out, and popular sites can reach capacity before that.
• Course familiarity: if a qualifier sits at a course your kid knows, that is a mild edge, mostly for calming nerves.

Watch the registration window in your area, which typically opens in spring, and enter early rather than late.

Be clear-eyed about what Drive, Chip and Putt does for a junior.

What it is: a free, well-run national skills competition with a genuinely rare prize at the top. Reaching Augusta National as a kid is a memory that outlasts almost any junior result, and qualifying under pressure is real, useful practice at competing.

What it is not: a ranked stroke-play tournament. Drive, Chip and Putt does not produce a scoring record, does not feed the junior rankings college coaches read, and carries essentially no direct recruiting weight. A coach will not offer a spot because a player won a local qualifier. The value is the experience and the reps, not a line on a recruiting resume.

So enter it for what it is. If the longer goal is competitive, ranked golf, this is a strong early confidence-builder, but the record that matters gets built elsewhere. See what stroke-play juniors are playing on the GolfNexus tournament calendar, read our getting started with junior tournaments guide for the on-ramp, and use the junior golf age divisions guide to find the right events once your kid outgrows the skills-competition stage.