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Jaime's Top 10
Updated: Tuesday March 20, 2001 10:17 PM By Jaime Diaz
1. Bobby Jones The junior champion at the Atlanta Athletic Club when he was nine, Jones broke 80 when he was 11 and won the Georgia Amateur and two matches in the U.S. Amateur at 14. At 15 he took the Southern Amateur and at 17 was second in the Canadian Open and the U.S. Amateur. 2. Sergio García At 12 he broke 70, and at 14 he made the cut in his first European tour event, the '95 Turespaña Open. He won the European Amateur at 15 and was 17 when he took 19 amateur events and the Catalonian Open. 3. Tiger Woods He won Optimist International age-group titles at 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 and 15, and three straight U.S. Juniors, becoming the youngest winner, at 15. He was also the youngest U.S. Amateur winner, taking the first of three consecutive titles at 18. 4. Young Tom Morris He won a tournament against leading pros when he was 13 and the British Open at 18, 19 and 20 (by 12 strokes). There was no Open in 1871, so his victory in '72 was his fourth straight. Morris died on Christmas Day, 1875, at 25. 5. Eddie Pearce The original Next Nicklaus, Pearce gained a rep for winning money games against Tour players as a teenager. He took the 1968 U.S. Junior at 16 and was a finalist the next year. His career headed south after he four-putted to lose the '71 U.S. Amateur. He never won a Tour event. 6. Gary Koch Driven by his rivalry with Pearce, Koch won three straight Florida junior titles and at 16 the '69 Florida Open. The following year Koch took the U.S. Junior and won a U.S. Open qualifier by 11 shots. He's had six victories on Tour. 7. Jack Nicklaus He dominated Ohio junior events and at 16 won the state's Open. When he was 18, Nicklaus finished 15th in his Tour debut, the '58 Rubber City Open. 8. Phil Mickelson He won 34 junior titles in San Diego and 12 more on the American Junior Golf Association tour, where he was player of the year three seasons in a row. 9. Doug Clarke California's Pearce, Clarke was taught by Paul Runyan and played money games against Gene Littler and Craig Stadler. Second in the '76 U.S. Junior, at 17, Clarke won the '76 Trans-Miss and was a second-team All-America at Stanford. He fell victim to substance abuse, never played on Tour and is now a teaching pro. 10. Bob Rosburg At five he was demonstrating his golfing prowess on vaudeville stages as the opening act for Richard Byrd, the polar explorer. Rosburg won every title of note around San Francisco, but after losing in the finals of the California State Amateur in 1944, '45 and '48, he gave up the game for three years. He won six Tour events, including the 1959 PGA Championship. Issue date: March 26, 2001 For more Golf Plus Notebook see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, March 21. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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