Tiger Woods was a child prodigy. After he graduated from Western High School in 1994, he was chosen as the “Most Likely to Succeed” student. Despite receiving scholarship offers from many elite golf colleges, Woods chose to pursue his golf career at Stanford University, and is arguably the university’s most successful amateur golfer.
In the fall of 1994, Tiger Woods won the 40th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational, capping off an amazing start to his college career. He then proceeded to defend his US Amateur championship in 1995 at the Newport Country Club in Rhode Island.
Between 1994 and 1996, he attended Stanford University and won eleven tournaments. Woods was named NCAA First Team All-American, Pac-10 Player of the Year, and Standard’s Male Freshman of the Year for his outstanding collegiate career.
In 1996, he was named Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year and won the NCAA Individual Championship.
During his collegiate career, Woods also participated in his first PGA Tour major, The Masters, in 1995 at the age of 19. He was the only amateur golfer who made the cut at the tournament.
Woods then went on to win the US Amateur Championship for the third time in a row the next year, making history as the first golfer to do so.
Alongside these victories, Tiger Woods also took home the silver medal from The Open Championship. After enjoying two successful years in college, he started his professional journey in 1996.
The amateur career of Tiger Woods
Growing up in Orange County, Tiger Woods was introduced to golf at a young age by his father, Earl Woods, a single-digit amateur golfer. Tiger grew up playing golf and at the age of three, he played a round of 48 over nine holes at the Navy Course.
He was featured in Golf Digest at the age of five and won the Junior World Golf Championship at the age of eight in a group of 9-10 boy events. Woods had won six Junior World Championships, including four consecutive wins during his junior days.
He was the youngest US Junior Amateur winner, a record that existed until 2010, when Jim Liu won the tournament. In 1992, he defended his title and became the first golfer to win two consecutive US Junior Amateur titles.
That year, Woods also played in his first PGA Tour event, the Nissan Los Angeles Open, but he missed the cut. He continued won the US Junior Amateur three times in a row in 1993, and still retains the record as the only three-time winner of the competition.
Woods also became the youngest golfer to win the US Amateur Championship the following year. However, Danny Lee broke the record in 2008. He won the championship again in 1996 after successfully defending it in 1995.
