Tiger Woods didn’t accomplish it. Neither did Phil Mickelson.
David Oraee of Greeley did.
American Junior Golf Association tournaments have been around since 1978, and though Woods and Mickelson were once AJGA regulars, neither holds the record for most dominating performance in the history of the circuit.
That honor belongs to Oraee, who last week won the AJGA’s Junior All-Star at Aspen tournament by 18 strokes. Never before in the 31-year history of AJGA events had a player captured the boys title in a tournament by that large a margin. In fact, Oraee broke the previous record — set by Richard Lee in a 2004 event in Las Cruces, N.M. — by three shots.
And, mind you, the AJGA now conducts more than 80 tournaments per year nationwide.
“It meant a lot to me,” Oraee said in a phone interview Sunday from Lubbock, Texas, where he’ll compete in another AJGA event this week. “A lot of good pros (once played) the AJGA.”
To put Oraee’s feat at Aspen Golf Club into perspective, the biggest AJGA margin of victory for Mickelson, who won a record 12 AJGA tournaments, was nine shots. The largest other than Oraee’s on the 2009 AJGA circuit (30 individual events have been held so far) has been six strokes.
The juniors in the field with Oraee in Aspen must have felt like the also-rans who watched Woods win the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots or the 1997 Masters by 12.
“I just tried to win by as much as I could,” said Oraee, a junior-to-be at Greeley West High School. “Everything was going pretty well. I hit every green (in regulation) the first day and all but two the second day. And I was making a lot of putts. The course (6,706 yards) was set up the way I like to play. I had a lot of wedges into greens.”
Apparently, that’s how a person shoots 66-64-70 for a 54-hole total of 16-under-par 200. That ranks as one of the top 10 three-round totals in AJGA history, relative to par. For comparison’s sake, last year’s winner in the Junior All-Star at Aspen shot 216, while Oraee came in at 229, good for eighth place.
The Junior All-Star at Aspen is limited to players 12-15 years old. It likely will be the last 12-15 event Oraee competes in as he turns 16 next month. But he plans to play in several more 18-and-under AJGA tournaments this summer. He recently placed 12th in such an AJGA event at The Club at Flying Horse in Colorado Springs.
Suffice it to say that Oraee’s abilities belie his age. He’s shot 61 from the tips during a casual round at Green Valley Ranch, home of the HealthOne Colorado Open. But the 64 Oraee posted the second day in Aspen was the lowest competitive round of his life.
Oraee, who plays out of Greeley Country Club, took a 13-shot lead into the final round and ended up winning by 18 over Myles Miller of Wellington, Kan. Oraee didn’t know until he completed the tournament that the winning margin was an AJGA record. Now he calls what he did in Aspen the biggest accomplishment of his young career. But the summer season has barely begun.
“I”˜m just going to play the best I can and try to get a couple more wins,” he said. “I just want to keep it going.”
Oraee has played in a couple of Colorado Junior Golf Association events this spring, but he’s also sprinkled in a healthy mix of national AJGA tournaments to his schedule this year.
“The competition is good; it makes you play your best at all times,” said Oraee, a seventh-place finisher in each of his first two state high school tournaments. “And it’s a little more prestigious.”
