Cheboygan’s PJ Maybank Breaks Record at Historic Azalea Invitational

By Tom Lang

PJ Maybank III has been the top junior golfer in Michigan the past few years. 

Now he’s established as one of the nation’s best.

Maybank, a senior in high school at Cheboygan, blitzed the field and recently set a new 4-round tournament record 22-under par at the Azalea Invitational, a prestigious and historic event played annually since 1946 at the Country Club of Charleston, SC.  It draws the very best Mid-Ams and Juniors from across the U.S. and internationally each year just before The Masters, along with a unique combination of college players. 

“To win that I was super hyped,” he said, especially setting the tournament record by three shots, breaking (now PGA Tour’s) CT Pan’s 265 in 2011. 

Maybank scored 68-64-68-64-262, winning this year’s event by 11 shots. Former Azalea champions who since made the PGA Tour include Webb Simpson (twice), D.J. Trahan, Casey Wittenberg and Spencer Levine.

“This win that PJ just posted at the Azalea Invitational was as good of win as any of a guy I’ve had coming into our program,” said Ryan Hybl, the head coach at national powerhouse University of Oklahoma, Maybank’s next stop in his career. “It’s just hard as a junior golfer to go dominate an amateur event like that one, it’s just kind of unheard of honestly. It was very impressive.”

Maybank was Mr. Golf Michigan in 2021, his only season playing high school golf. He then focused on travel events but calls his two GAM Junior titles in the same year his most proud Great Lakes State victories – when he won both the Junior Stroke Play Amateur and the Junior Match Play Am, back to back in 2020 and 2021. In prior years he also earned a total of three trips to Augusta National for Drive Chip and Putt, winning it once.

In 2022, he won the Junior Heritage, played each year at Harbor Town on Hilton Head Island. He calls it, and the Azalea, his best wins to date. 

“A lot of things have changed with this win” he told me about winning the Azalea. “I’m sure I’ll get into some bigger amateur events over the summer, so I’ll probably have to change my schedule up a bit. But it’s all good stuff.”

Indeed, his schedule has changed. Maybank was set to compete in the Michigan Amateur at Oakland Hills North in June, but during the first round of the Azalea he was invited to be on the 4-man Team USA at the Toyota Jr. World Cup in Japan about the same time.

“I’ve always wanted to go overseas and play a different style of golf. I can’t wait.”

Maybank is equally pumped to get his college career going at Oklahoma, the 2021 NCAA Runners Up when ranked No. 1, and the 2017 Champions. The Sooners are the only team to have reached the NCAA quarterfinals in the last 6 consecutive years. The fact Coach Hybl wants Maybank to join the OU program is a huge confidence booster for the Michigander.

“The first time I saw him play it was immediate attraction, and when you evaluate a lot of kids like I do, and when someone really sticks out at you, it’s very glaring,” Hybl said. “I already knew who he was through social media, but when I saw him the first time at the U.S. Junior, it was obvious, and I started working very hard that week trying to figure out how I could get in front of him. I could tell right then he was a big-time player.”

Something Michiganders have known for the past several years.