Eldrick (Tiger) Woods

Eldrick (Tiger) Woods needed only a bogey on the first extra hole to become the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.

Woods, 15, of Cypress, California, won five consecutive holes beginning with the 398-yard eighth, but he gradually lost his advantage until a bogey on the 18th hole allowed Brad Zwetschke, 16, of Kankakee, Ill., to send the match to extra holes. Zwetschke, however, double bogeyed the 19th, and Woods' bogey was good enough for him to claim the title.

Zwetschke held the early lead, jumping out to a three-hole advantage by the sixth before Woods began his comeback. Woods, who reached the semifinals a year ago before losing to Dennis Hillman, of Rye, N.Y., had little trouble working his way through match play at Bay Hill. He never was extended to the 18th hole in his five matches leading up to the final and, in fact, won two of his early matches by lopsided margins of 8 and 7, and 5 and 3. He went on to defeat Kevin Mihailoff, of Naples, Fla., in his semifinal, 5 and 4.

In two days of stroke play qualifying, Woods again was in front of the pack with his 4-under-par total of 140, four strokes ahead of Justin Klein, of Phoenix, Md., who was upset in the first match play round. Zwetschke, who qualified at 151, won a couple of his matches by a margin of 2 and 1. One of them was his win over Mark Slawter, of Winston-Salem, N.C., in the semifinals. In his third-round match, he edged John Lawrence, of Houston, Texas, 1 up.

The championship was hampered by six delays for thunderstorms, totaling more than 10 hours of stopped play and pushing the final back one day. Woods is the second 15-year-old to win the Junior, and is one month younger than was Michael Brannan when he won the event in 1971.