The Game Keeps Getting Bigger — And Redick Johnson Keeps Answering the Challenge
By PrepSpin Sports
There is a lot that can happen between the first tee and the final green.
For young golfers, that journey is about more than learning how to hit a golf ball. It’s about learning how to compete, how to handle pressure, how to recover from a bad hole and how to keep getting better when the competition gets tougher.
For Redick Johnson of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, that journey began years before most kids his age were thinking seriously about tournament golf.
And it has already produced quite a story.
WHERE IT STARTED
Johnson’s introduction to competitive golf didn’t begin with the trophies that would eventually fill the shelves.
It began with learning the game.
In May 2018, Johnson began taking golf lessons from Mike Thomas at Harmony Landing Country Club. He continued working with Thomas for approximately two years, building the foundation of a golf swing and learning a game that would quickly become a major part of his life.
Johnson began playing tournament golf around age five.
By 2020, his name was already appearing near the top of Kentucky junior golf standings. He entered that season’s Lou Perry Tour Championship second in the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour Boys 8 & Under Player of the Year race.
But two years later, Johnson put together the season that would establish him as one of Kentucky’s most accomplished young junior golfers.
THE PERFECT SEASON
The 2022 season was almost impossible to improve upon.
Competing in the Boys 8 & Under division of the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour, Johnson entered nine tournaments.
He won all nine.
Nine tournaments.
Nine victories.
The perfect season included victories in all three major championships in his division.
Johnson finished the year as the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour Boys 8 & Under Player of the Year and closed the season in style, shooting a 1-under-par 35 in the final round of the Lou Perry Tour Championship.
It wasn’t simply a good season.
It was a perfect one.
And it provided an early glimpse of what Johnson could do when preparation, confidence and competitiveness came together.
THE GAME GETS BIGGER
Junior golf never stays the same for long.
Players grow.
Courses get longer.
Age divisions change.
And the competition gets stronger.
As Johnson moved through those changes, the challenge became less about dominating the division he had already conquered and more about learning to compete at the next level.
Golf House Kentucky identified Johnson as a player to watch entering the 2024 season after he recorded two top-five finishes during 2023.
Johnson also expanded his competitive schedule beyond local events, including U.S. Kids Golf and the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour.
The results followed him there, too.
WINNING ON THE HURRICANE JUNIOR GOLF TOUR
The 2025 season provided another important step.
At the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour’s College Prep Series at Louisville, Johnson shot rounds of 75 and 77 for a two-round total of 152.
He won the Boys 10–11 division by eight strokes.
At the Summer College Prep Series at the University Club of Kentucky, Johnson did it again, posting rounds of 76 and 78 for a two-day total of 154 to win his division.
Then came the Kentucky Junior Open.
Johnson captured another Boys 10–11 championship, posting a two-round total of 175 and finishing one stroke ahead of Lexington’s Caleb Queen.
Three Hurricane Junior Golf Tour victories added another chapter to a tournament résumé that had already begun accumulating wins years earlier.
A HUGE 2026 SEASON
Then came 2026.
Playing on the Bluegrass Golf Tour, Johnson put together another remarkable season.
He recorded 22 tournament victories during the year and earned the 2026 Bluegrass Golf Tour Player of the Year honor.
Johnson is scheduled to receive that award in October at the Bluegrass Cup, the final event of the Bluegrass Golf Tour season.
Those 22 victories also pushed Johnson’s documented career total to at least 35 tournament wins across multiple junior golf tours.
And those numbers may not tell the entire story.
Johnson’s tournament career stretches back to around age five, and some of his earliest junior golf results are no longer easily accessible online.
What is documented, however, shows a player who has continued to win as the courses, divisions and competition have changed.
A NEW AGE. A NEW CHALLENGE.
Winning isn’t the only measure of development in junior golf.
In 2026, Johnson moved into the Boys 12–13 division on the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour.
At the College Prep Series at Louisville, he finished third in his new division, posting an 86 at the University of Louisville Golf Club.
The result represented another transition.
Older competitors.
Longer courses.
Different expectations.
At the same time, Johnson has begun competing in varsity high school golf for Elizabethtown despite being a seventh grader and a member of the Class of 2032.
Every step adds another challenge.
And every challenge provides another opportunity to learn what the next level requires.
MORE THAN A LEADERBOARD
It’s easy to look at junior golf through numbers.
Wins.
Scores.
Trophies.
Player of the Year awards.
But junior golfers don’t develop simply because they collect trophies.
They develop through the tournaments they win and the tournaments they don’t.
They learn to handle pressure, bad rounds, longer courses, stronger fields and the expectations that come with previous success.
Johnson has already experienced nearly every part of that process.
He went from learning the game as a young child to tournament golf around age five.
He went from competing for Kentucky junior golf honors to producing a perfect season.
Then he moved into older divisions and regional competition.
And he kept winning.
FROM KENTUCKY TO IRELAND
The next chapter will take Johnson farther from home than ever before.
His 2026 success earned him an invitation to compete in the 2027 Champion of Champions Junior World Championship at Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.
For a young golfer whose journey began with lessons in Kentucky in May 2018, the opportunity represents another significant step.
Kentucky junior tournaments eventually became regional events.
Regional events became larger fields.
And now tournament golf will take him overseas.
There is still a long way to go.
Johnson is only a seventh grader and a member of the Class of 2032.
There will be longer courses ahead.
Stronger players.
Good rounds and difficult ones.
More wins and, inevitably, days when the putts don’t fall.
That is junior golf.
And that is what makes Johnson’s next chapter worth watching.
Because the story is no longer simply about the nine-year-old who once went 9-for-9.
It is about what he has done since.
And where the game might take him next.
REDICK BY THE NUMBERS
35+ — Documented career tournament victories
22 — Bluegrass Golf Tour victories during the 2026 season
9-for-9 — Tournament record during his perfect 2022 Kentucky PGA Junior Tour season
3 — Major championships won during the 2022 Kentucky PGA Junior Tour season
3 — Hurricane Junior Golf Tour victories during 2025
1 — 2022 Kentucky PGA Junior Tour Boys 8 & Under Player of the Year award
1 — 2026 Bluegrass Golf Tour Player of the Year award
152 — Two-round winning score at the 2025 College Prep Series at Louisville
154 — Two-round winning score at the 2025 Summer College Prep Series at UK
2018 — Began formal golf instruction with Mike Thomas at Harmony Landing Country Club
2032 — High school graduating class
2027 — Champion of Champions Junior World Championship at Lough Erne Resort in Northern Ireland
PLAYER SPOTLIGHT
REDICK JOHNSON
Elizabethtown, Kentucky
Sport: Golf
Class: 2032
School: Elizabethtown
Career Victories: 35+ documented
2022: Kentucky PGA Junior Tour Boys 8 & Under Player of the Year — 9 wins in 9 starts
2025: Three Hurricane Junior Golf Tour victories
2026: 22 Bluegrass Golf Tour wins and Player of the Year
2027: Champion of Champions Junior World Championship invitee
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