BBQ Circuit--East Texas

efore there was Tiger Woods, there was Ben Crenshaw. Woods did the unthinkable as an amateur, winning three consecutive USGA Junior Amateur titles before adding three straight U. S. Am championships. But before the world had ever heard of Woods, a... More

efore there was Tiger Woods, there was Ben Crenshaw. Woods did the unthinkable as an amateur, winning three consecutive USGA Junior Amateur titles before adding three straight U. S. Am championships. But before the world had ever heard of Woods, a natural athlete from Austin with a stocky build and blonde hair dominated junior golf in Texas in the late 1960s. On a smaller stage, he had every bit the aura of Arnold Palmer. Crenshaw won the State Junior Am at Brackenridge Park in San Antonio as a 15-year-old in 1967 and again in 1969, shooting under par for the 72-hole competition. In 1968, he won the state Jaycees tournament in Abilene, which qualified him for the national competition in Tulsa. He won that, too. His legend in junior golf culminated two years later when he rolled his tee shot across a bridge on the final hole to maintain a one-shot lead and win the Texas-Oklahoma Junior in Wichita Falls. That bridge was named in his honor but has since been removed with a recent Less