Basketball coach Mike Larkin has quite the coaching resume. He has coached and trained players in the United States, Europe, and the Bahamas. For the last five years, the Jupiter resident has coached local girls, ranging from fifth to 12th grade.

In that five year period, his Hoops City program has sent countless high school seniors to college on basketball and academic scholarships, including five this year. Kiandra Bowers, Ayanna Holmes, Samantha Goldis, Elizabeth Bolchoz, and Lauren Janka all signed letters of intent to play college basketball at schools throughout the country.

Training at the North Palm Beach Recreation Center, girls from all over Palm Beach County come to learn and work on their game from Larkin and his staff of volunteer coaches. Larkin was a highly recruited high school point guard in Connecticut growing up and emphasizes fundamentals over winning.

His program, which is a nonprofit organization has now sent 10 girls to college on scholarship in it’s five years of existence, something that he is proud of, especially since most of the girls come from single parent homes.

“Our five scholarships this year now make 10 in five years,” Larkin told the Palm Beach Post. “That’s $1.8 million in scholarship money. And 80 percent of our girls come from single-parent households.”

For more information on Hoops City, visit their website at www.hoopscityflorida.com.

The Jupiter High School Baseball Team had a season that the players and coaches will never forget. Going into this season, the Warriors had never advanced to the State tournament. In fact, prior to this year the team had never played in a regional championship game.

The Jupiter Warriors celebrate after advancing to their first state tournament

That all changed this year as Jupiter put together its most successful seasons in program history. The team finished the season with a record of 23-5, best of any team in Palm Beach County. Their season started with a 13 game winning streak and the Warriors did not suffer their first loss until Spring Break which was almost two months into the season.

Jupiter went through the regular season relatively easily, with a dominant combination of pitching and hitting. It was this combination of pitching and hitting that allowed them to go through the regular season and postseason without facing a lot of problems. While Jupiter lost in the final four of the State Championship to Lake Brantley High School it was still a special season as it was the program’s first State Championship appearance.

With the Crowne Plaza Invitational being held in Fort Worth, Texas and the BMW PGA Championship being held in England, our local golfers will be spread out this weekend. Add in the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic and there will be plenty of opportunity to to watch some of our Tour pros this weekend. We take a look at where and what time they will be teeing it up on Thursday and Friday.

Charl Schwartzel (Old Palm)- Crowne Plaza Invitational 12:33pm Thursday and 7:33am Friday

Rickie Fowler (Loxahatchee River)- Crowne Plaza Invitational 12:33pm Thursday and 7:33am Friday

Freddie Jacobson (Hobe Sound)- Crowne Plaza Invitational  12:44pm Thursday and 7:44am Friday

Luke Donald (Bears Club)- BMW PGA Championship 7:50am Thursday and 3:25am Friday

Ernie Els (Jupiter)- BMW PGA Championship 8:00am Thursday and 3:35am Friday

Rory Mcllroy (Palm Beach Gardens)- BMW PGA Championship 3:25am Thursday and 7:50am Friday

Lee Westwood (Old Palm)- BMW PGA Championship 8:00am Thursday and 3:35am Friday

Stacy Lewis (Medalist)- Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic 8:31am Thursday and 1:21pm Friday

Belen Mozo (Medalist)- Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic 1:54pm Thursday and 9:04am Friday

This week, the PGA Tour heads to Texas for the HP Byron Nelson Championship. The event, named after the late great Byron Nelson, is played on a course with a similar set up to last week’s Players Championship.

The TPC Four Seasons Resort in Irving, Texas is a par 70 course designed originally by Jay Morrish and opened in 1983. The course underwent a major overhaul in 2007 by D.A. Weibring and Steve Wolfard. The course features large greens but also has runoffs and closely mown areas just off the green that will penalize poor shots.

While the field is missing some of the big names that were present at last week’s Players, the field is still a tough one that features many local golfers from our area.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Louis Oosthuizen is highest ranked player in the 156 player field. The Old Palm resident is the seventh ranked player in the world and is coming off a 19^th place finish last week. He has three top 20 finishes in his last four starts.

Oosthuzien’s neighbor in Old Palm, Charl Schwartzel is making his TPC Four Season debut this week. He is coming into this week fresh off a 55^th place finish at the TPC Sawgrass last week which ended his run of consecutive top 25 finishes at 13.

Keegan Bradley won the event in 2011. The Tequesta resident went on to win Rookie of the Year honors that year. He finished in a tie for 24^th in his title defense last year and has five top 10 finishes already this year. He has missed his last two cuts but will look to turn that around on a TPC Four Seasons course that he has had success on.

Dustin Johnson has had an enormous amount of success at this event over the years. The Loxahatchee River resident is 4-for-4 at the TPC Four Seasons finishing in a tie for 20^th, a tie for seventh and a tie for fourth in the last three years. Injuries to his left wrist and lower back have caused him to withdraw or pull out of tournaments over the past two weeks, so his health will play a big factor in his success this week.

The HP Byron Nelson Championship takes place Thursday through Sunday and can be seen on the Golf Channel and CBS. For complete coverage on the event, visit www.pgatour.com.