Allred White And Blue

Oregon 17-Year-Old Defeats Globetrotting South African Trevor Immelman For 1997 U.S. Junior Title


April 15, 2008

This story was reprinted from the September 1997 issue of the USGA's Golf Journal magazine.

By Brett Avery

He barely has stubble on his chin and keeps a boyish grin on his face, so Jason Allred is rarely mistaken for a grizzled veteran. Yet here he was at Aronomink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia, playing in his fourth U.S. Junior Amateur. It was the twilight of a youthful career that would end April 6 his 18th birthday.

For this week, however, he was an old man recognized by his peers from his introduction during the pre-championship dinner. It was a special night, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first Junior Amateur, an event stretching back to the heady days following World War II. Allred was asked to take a bow, since four-time Junior entrants are as rare as rampant bull markets.

His first year, the season after Eldrick "Tiger" Woods won his last Junior, Allred lost in the second round. The next year it was the third round, but last year it was a crushing first-round defeat. "I was really disappointed after that," he said. "I thought I would do so much better."

Reigning Masters champion Trevor Immelman came up one match short at the 1997 U.S. Junior Amateur. (USGA Photo Archives)

Allred turned his Junior denouement into a classic. He shot the second-lowest total in the stroke-play rounds, 142, won six matches, including a nail-biting 1-up defeat of Trevor Immelman, the world-traveling South African who at age 17 nearly won this year's British Amateur.

Despite Allred's tenure, first-time entrant Immelman was as much a favorite as Secretariat. He had gone into the British Amateur at Royal St. George's having won six straight tournaments, including the South African Amateur and Junior. In a year when the visitors are pocketing all the USGA silverware, Immelman was prepared to take another cup across the pond.

Allred twice refused to crumble. He led early by three holes, only to have Immelman square the match at the 10th. Once again Allred rushed forward, going 2 up with a heart-stopping chip-in for birdie at the 465-yard 15th, but Immelman responded with a pair of magnificent birdies. With everything on the line at the 18th, his 132nd hole in five days, Allred made a regulation par from 20 feet while made an uncharacteristically poor swing from the fairway to find a bunker, then grazed the hole with a 24-footer.

"I can't believe that I missed that shot to the left," Immelman said of his 6-iron approach. "I don't believe I short-sided myself on that green. That never should have happened."

Immelman again fell in a match-play final which he putted poorly while his opponent seemingly made all the crucial ones. Allred would have taken 28 putts if every concession had dropped, against 31 for Immelman.

"This is what I've dreamed about, coming down the last hole and having a chance to win," Allred said with a beaming smile. "I never thought I'd get nervous, but I was on the 18th. It was unbelievable, a great feeling."

The loss, before an enthusiastic gallery estimated at more than 1,500, was a crushing blow to Immelman, who lost three of the first five holes with bogeys and did not make his first regulation par until the 382-yard seventh. Only dropped shots by Allred at three of the next five holes saved Immelman from a drubbing.

"I started great the first four holes and was hitting the ball almost perfectly. Then I lost my swing," Allred recalled. "I'm fortunate Trevor didn't play his best, because he would have whooped me."

It was the second close call Allred had during a week of otherwise easy contests. He had been 4 up at the turn in his opener against Ned Yetten of Andover, Mass., who had survived an eight-for-five playoff to secure a spot in the 64-player draw. But Yetten was even 4s on the back nine, making a bogey at the long 16th to halve and still lost, 1 down. Otherwise, Allred saw the 16th just once in his next four matches.

Immelman was even more dominating in the lower bracket. He won two of his first three starts by scores of 7 and 5, and 4 and 3, each without losing a hole. The only time in his preliminaries that he trailed was when he made bogey at the 381-yard second against Sean O'Hair of Scottsdale, Ariz., in the semifinals. Immelman then won three of the next four and coasted, 5 and 4.

There was one anxious moment, and it nearly caused Immelman to withdraw from the event. During the third round against Andrew Doeden of Fargo, N.D., Immelman was 2 up at the 14th when he was taking a practice swing and heard something pop in his index finger of his left hand. He had hurt the same finger last year and feared a recurrence. "It was swelling, and it was painful to grip the club. I was thinking, 'Geez, what happens if I can't play?' "

But Immelman would not blame the finger for his play in the final, where he hit only seven fairways off the tee and made four bogeys before his first birdie, at the 16th.

"It's kind of tough, going to the final of two of the biggest tournaments in the world and then losing," he said. "I've always been a bit of a slow starter in match play, and my parents would say, 'Go and win from the first tee.' But I didn't do that today."

Allred was the one taking the advice. The high school senior lives in Ashland, Ore., a town of about 16,000 located in the state's southwest corner, about 15 minutes from the California border. He traveled to the Junior solo; his family followed his progress via telephone and on the television as the final rounds were shown nationally (on ESPN). Allred is a player representative on the board of the American Junior Golf Association and carries a 3.95 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. At 6-foot-3 and 165 pounds, he's also a stringbean with a perpetual smile. During the final's deciding holes, while Immelman stared at the ground and marched to his next shot, Allred answered questions and chatted with youngsters who were drawn to him like a magnet.

The Junior followed a scrunched schedule with two days of stroke play Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by two-a-day match-play rounds. Compounding matters was a Thursday of rotten weather, which ensured the 6,895-yard course would play long and tough. A constant rain, sometimes slashing at a 45-degree angle, and temperatures cold enough to make everyone's breath visible, fell during the first two rounds of match play. It was remarkable that the grounds crew stayed ahead of pooling water on the greens with a fleet of squeegies, and only the last two matches were suspended until the next morning.

"I told my caddie, 'Why did I fly 15,000 miles for weather just like back home?" a soaked Immelman asked that evening as he dried his equipment. "It's all the same for everybody, so you just grit your teeth and make the best of it."

Ryan Hybl, a 16-year-old from Hazlehurst, Ga., who had placed second in three previous starts, including the Tournament of Champions, took the medal with 71-69. Allred was in a four-way tie at 142, coming off a confidence-building 67 to open. Hybl won his first three matches by close margins, twice winning at the 18th green, but was bounced Friday afternoon by Chris Zeller of Boca Raton, Fla., 1 up.

Zeller, who birdied the last two in local qualifying to make the field, is constantly mistaken as a relative of former U.S. Open winner Fuzzy Zoeller. "Doesn't matter that the names are spelled differently," he said. "I'm asked about him all the time."

He could have used Zoeller's game Saturday morning in the semifinals against Allred, where he lost, 5 and 4. Zeller opened the match with a 54-foot birdie putt, but then hit a snap-hook drive at the 442-yard third en route to a bogey and was 2 down after No. 5.

"When Jason had to make putts to win holes, he made them, and when I had to make them, I didn't," Zeller said. "The first time I heard about him was at the dinner. I thought, 'Wow, four Juniors. He must be pretty good."

Immelman was taking advantage of O'Hair by the same score. Two weeks after his 15th birthday, O'Hair scooted into his first match-play draw with 74-73 and cruised against his first two opponents. He went to the 19th hole Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and was flagging by the time he met Immelman.

"If he hits it out of the fairway or misses a green, he has a way to get it up and down," O'Hair said of Immelman. "He's one of the best in the world."

Immelman could not recreate that level of play in the final. While Allred barely missed genuine birdie attempts at the first three greens, Immelman lagged from 48, 40 and 36 feet. He bogeyed the 452-yard fourth from a greenside bunker, then couldn't scramble for par at the 167-yard fifth after finding a grass bunker with a 7-iron.

"I hit it so good on the range before the match, but then I developed a technical hitch on the course," Immelman said.

Allred made bogey at the sixth, double at the eighth and bogey at the 10th as Immelman found his groove and recorded six consecutive pars to square the match. But at the 430-yard 12th, Immelman's chip ran across the putting surface and he bogeyed. Then, when Allred ran down a 34-yard pitch shot for birdie at the 15th, gaining a two-hole lead, Immelman seemed doomed.

"I couldn't believe the rush I got after that shot," Allred said. "It just got me pumped up even more."

Immelman refused to surrender, nearly reaching the 542-yard 16th with a driver-driver, the second from the right rough, and dropping a nine-footer for birdie, then stiffing a 5-iron at the 206-yard 17th and canning a seven-footer.

"That was my best shot of the week," Immelman said, "and then to play the 18th the way I did was disappointing."

Their drives were within four yards of each other, and after Allred found the center of the green, about 20 feet below the hole, Immelman opted for a smooth 6-iron instead of a hard 7-iron. The ball dove into the front left bunker, necessitating an odd stance with his feet outside the sand. The ball came out softly but trickled off the upper tier and stopped 24 feet from the hole. The putt seemed on line, but it grazed the left edge, leaving Allred two putts for the title.

His first thought after the awards presentation was to call his parents. "We had a little cry, but it was great," Allred said. "I thought of my family through the whole match."

Allred also thought of the next round on his calendar, two days away, a U.S. Amateur qualifier in Dallas before another junior tournament. With the Junior Amateur victory, he gained a rare Amateur exemption and wiped the round from the books. "Nice way to get into the Amateur," he said with a grin.

Nice way to complete a junior career, too.

Editor's note: Among those to make the match-play draw at the 1997 U.S. Junior Amateur were future PGA Tour winners Lucas Glover, Adam Scott and Hunter Mahan, along with the aforementioned Sean O'Hair. Hybl would be the runner-up at the 2006 U.S. Mid-Amateur.