By the time Joseph Paolucci of Milton arrives for the Boston College High School golf team tryouts in late August, it’s safe to say he’ll be warmed up.

The 14-year-old rising freshman plays on the New England PGA Junior Tour, an organization aimed at developing young golfers by providing them the chance to play against other youngsters in local competitions.

The tour is made up of more than 800 boys and girls ages 9 to 21, participating in more than 100 junior tournaments per season. Paolucci takes advantage, frequently playing in more than one tournament a week.

If he’s not at a tournament, he can be found practicing at the Harmon Golf and Fitness Club in Rockland.

“He’s here every day,’’ said Jim Paolucci, watching his son warm up for a Junior Tour tournament hosted by Harmon early on a Monday morning. Paolucci would finish second, marking the fifth tournament in a row he’d finished in the top two.

His dad introduced him to the game by signing him up for the Junior Summer Camp at the Presidents Golf Course in Quincy when he was 6. A few years later, he became a junior member at the Harmon Club, and he’s been at the impressive practice facility just about every summer day since.

Paolucci is currently leading in points on the tour for his age division (boys 14-15), though like most freshman, he still has a lot of growing to do, at least, physically.

Mentally, he’s already shown the maturity of a seasoned golfer.

“I always like to talk on the course, and I love being paired with my friends,’’ he said. “But throughout the years, I’ve realized you also really need to focus. When we tee off, I pick out a target and make sure I’m not distracted.’’

Paolucci has begun testing his focus. He’ll soon begin playing three tournaments in a span of 15 days, including the Optimist International Jr. Golf Championships at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach, Fla., July 25.

Kaitlynn Washburn of Scituate also will be there. A rising sophomore at Scituate High School, she won the Harmon event last year, finishing 7 over through 18, 2 strokes better than the nearest competitor.

This week, however, she has her sights on the Golfweek New England Junior Invitational, held at Indian Pond Country Club in Kingston, where she finished tied for second at the NEPGA Jr. Tour Championship two years ago. That tournament was only a 9-hole endeavor. This year will be a different test, but Washburn is a different player.

“We’re constantly trying to trade up on what her goals are,’’ said Chris Carpenter, director of golf at Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord. “When we first started, it was stabilizing her body and her length. Now it’s more managing the course.’’

Coming off an outstanding freshman season that saw her finish tied for 13th at the girls’ state tournament, the Scituate Country Club member has been working with Carpenter every other week so that she’ll be in top form for the tougher course she’ll face in Florida.

“She loves to get better and she does the homework necessary,’’ Carpenter said. “Just like a piano teacher knows when you’ve been practicing, it’s the same thing with a golfer.’’

Not every young golfer on tour started as early as Paolucci and Washburn.

“Other than maybe two rounds with my dad when I was like 8, I didn’t start playing until my freshman year of high school,’’ said Caroline Buckley of Duxbury, who has played on the varsity team at Notre Dame Academy in Hingham every year since.

When she took up the sport, she simply hoped to make the high school’s junior varsity team. Four years later, she’s heading off to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., to play on the highly ranked women’s golf team there.

Her path to college golf has been circuitous: Her first sporting love was hockey, a game she always hoped to play in college.

“I tore my quad in hockey going into my sophomore year,’’ Buckley said, “and then I had to quit my junior year because I was going to blow my knee out. So then I thought: Now I really have to focus on golf if I want to play a sport in college.’’

And that’s exactly what she did.

“Her first year at Notre Dame, she had about seven or eight clubs, and then I got her a full set her sophomore year,’’ her father, Kevin Buckley, recalled. “And she just took off with it.’’

A three-time Globe All-Scholastic in golf blessed with a powerful swing (she hits her driver about 260 yards), Buckley encountered yet another obstacle in June — gall bladder surgery — but can now be found most every day at the Plymouth Country Club, working on her chipping and putting.

“I always felt like I was behind the ball because I started so late,’’ she said of her introduction to the sport, “but the idea that if I outwork everyone, I can be just as good, really pushed me through it.’’

She’ll carry that same attitude with her this summer as she prepares for the start of a very promising college career.

Sam Boyles can be reached at samuel.boyles@globe.com.