enjoyed every minute I stayed there. The whole golf course was a most pleasant and testing golf course. It’s a real test of golf. The North and South Open was a ‘major’ then. Pinehurst was a golf mecca.” Many more luminaries in golf have won at Pinehurst in the early stages of their respective careers. Tiger Woods was a high school senior when he competed in the 1992 Independent Insurance Agents Junior Golf Classic at Pinehurst No. 7. Pat McGowan, a tour pro and Southern Pines resident (his wife Bonnie was the daughter of Pine Needles owner Peggy Kirk Bell), had heard about the young phenomenon from California and made a point to find him on the golf course. There was a gallery of some 75 people already curious as well. “Tiger hit a one-iron off the tee to the same place I hit my driver,” McGowan said. “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.’ “He hit that that one-iron pure and high. It climbed up and up and up. You just don’t hit a one-iron 255 yards that high. That just doesn’t happen.” McGowan followed Woods for two holes and had seen enough. “He strikes the ball like a 25-year-old man,” McGowan said. “He is going to be a real hero
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