Top 10 Amateur Wins

By Lee Pace

Top 10 lists are always fun. Check out the opinion of golf writer, Lee Pace, top ten amateur plays in Pinehurst, NC.

1. Harvie Ward, 1948 North & South Amateur, No. 2 — A crowd estimated at near 2,000 lined the fairways of the No. 2 course, many of them friends and fraternity brothers of Ward, the Tarboro native and popular University of North Carolina golfer. Ward edged Frank Stranahan 1-up with caddie Barney Google reading the greens and Ward one-putting 18 greens in 36 holes.

2. Labron Harris, 1962 U.S. Amateur, No. 2 — The U.S. Amateur traditionally was held in August or September, and Pinehurst through the early 1970s was closed in the summer and didn’t open until October. But many of the top amateurs appealed to Pinehurst owner Richard Tufts to open early and allow the national championship to be played on the course they loved from years playing the North & South. Tufts relented and Labron Harris, the 20-year Oklahoman, took advantage with a 1-up win over Downing Gray.

3. Vicki Goetze, 1989 U.S. Women’s Amateur, No. 2 — It was the contrast of the willowy Goetze at 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds versus the raw power of Brandie Burton when these teenagers met for the final of the Women’s Amateur. Goetze collected the victory with a 5-and-3 win, but Pinehurst was the big winner as this was the club’s first USGA event since the 1962 U.S. Amateur and an opportunity to show that Pinehurst was fit for major national events. Pinehurst and the USGA have been on a roll ever since.

4. Bill Campbell, 1950 North & South, No. 2 — In the mid-1900s there was the “career amateur,” the golfer with considerable ability, a thriving career and the game not offering enough financial riches to turn pro. Campbell, the West Virginia insurance man, was Exhibit A. He edged Wynsol Spencer 1-up in 37 holes for the 1950 North & South, the first of four (the others coming ’53, ’57 and ’67). “Pinehurst is more than good golf courses,” Campbell once said. “It is a state of mind and a feeling for the game, its aesthetics, courtesies and emotions.”

5. Billy Joe Patton, 1965 Southern Amateur, No. 2 — The Morganton lumber broker was another consummate amateur of that era and won three North & South Amateurs and made the semifinals of the ’62 Amateur. And then in 1965, when Patton was 43 and figured he didn’t have many more wins left in him, he won the Southern Amateur at Pinehurst by one shot in the stroke-play format over Downing Gray.

Caption: Billy Joe Patton

5. Billy Joe Patton, 1965 Southern Amateur, No. 2 — The Morganton lumber broker was another consummate amateur of that era and won three North & South Amateurs and made the semifinals of the ’62 Amateur. And then in 1965, when Patton was 43 and figured he didn’t have many more wins left in him, he won the Southern Amateur at Pinehurst by one shot in the stroke-play format over Downing Gray.

6. Tiger Woods, 1992 Big I Junior Golf Championship, Pinehurst No. 7 — Woods, a high-school senior from Cypress, Calif., cruised to a nine-shot win in one of junior golf’s top annual competitions. Pat McGowan, a Southern Pines resident and member of the PGA Tour at the time, made a point to go watch the young phenom. “Tiger hit a one-iron off the tee to the same place I hit my driver,” McGowan says. “At the time, I was driving the ball 255 yards or so. I said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’ I turned to someone and said, ‘This kid is for real.’”

7. Jack Nicklaus II, 1985 North & South, No. 2 — There was huge gallery estimated at 2,000 watching the finals match that year. “It wasn’t the gallery that bothered me, it was one person in the gallery,” one golfer said of the legendary Golden Bear trekking the course and following his son, a student at the University of North Carolina. Jackie Nicklaus edged Tom McKnight 2-and-1 in the final, with Nicklaus Sr. saying his nerves were more frayed watching his son play than winning himself in the 1959 North & South and the 1975 Colgate Hall of Fame Classic.

8. Curtis Strange, 1975 & ‘76 North & South, No. 2 — An anchor on the Wake Forest juggernauts of the 1970s was Strange, who became the first golfer since Patton to win back-to-back North & Souths. He beat George Burns 2-up and Fred Ridley 6-and-5, with caddie Fletcher Gaines reading greens and pulling clubs. “Pinehurst was just a place you fell in love with,” Strange says. “Some of my proudest moments were some of the scores I shot at Pinehurst.”

9. Babe Didrickson Zaharias, 1947 Women’s North & South, No. 2 — You’ve heard of Byron Nelson’s 11 straight PGA Tour wins in 1945. Not as well-known is the streak of 17 straight wins Zaharias compiled in 1946-47 from Texas to Pinehurst, from Miami to the nation’s capital. Included in that was the North & South on No. 2 in mid-April. She edged Louise Suggs 1-up in the finals match.

Caption: Maureen Orcutt

10. Maureen Orcutt, 1931-33 North & South Women’s, No. 3 — Orcutt, a sportswriter with The New York Times, won 65 golf tournaments over four decades from the 1920s through the ‘60s, and six of those wins came in Pinehurst: three in the early 1930s in the Women’s North & South and three more in the early 1960s in the Women’s North & South Seniors. “I loved to play Pinehurst No. 2,” she said. “I could hit the ball. I used to be a hitter, they’d say, and I loved to let out, and you could let out on No. 2. We didn’t get to play No. 2 in the North and South. It was always played on No. 3.”