Early Years and Amateur Career
Venturi was born in San Francisco, California. He learned to play golf at an early age, and developed his game at Harding Park Golf Course and other public courses in the area. In the early 1950s, Venturi was a pupil of Byron Nelson, and was also influenced by playing partner Ben Hogan. He won the California State Amateur Championship in 1951 and 1956, serving in the Army in Korea in the interim. Venturi first gained national attention in 1956 while still an amateur; he finished second in that year's Masters, one shot behind Jack Burke, Jr., after leading from the first round. Venturi shot a final-round 80 in very windy conditions, and relinquished a four-shot lead, which prevented him from winning outright and thus becoming the first amateur to do so in the history of The Masters. Years later it would be compared to Greg Norman's back nine collapse in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Ken Venturi
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early, years, amateur and/or career:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“I could be, I discovered, by turns stern, loving, wise, silly, youthful, aged, racial, universal, indulgent, strict, with a remarkably easy and often cunning detachment ... various ways that an adult, spurred by guilt, by annoyance, by condescension, by loneliness, deals with the prerogatives of power and love.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“Passing through here in 1795, Bishop Asbury commented, ‘The country improves in cultivation, wickedness, mills, and stills.’ Five years later, he held a meeting in the neighborhood and remarked that he thought most of the congregation had come to look at his wig.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
—Freya Stark (1893–1993)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)