Morales relishes the time he took down Tiger at Torrey Pines

Earlier this month, Gilberto Morales’ phone buzzed around 4 a.m. The message contained the latest reminder of his improbable victory almost three decades ago.

A friend sent Morales a screenshot of a tweet that came out shortly after Tiger Woods announced his intention to play this year’s Farmers Insurance Open. The post mentioned Morales as the author of the aberration on Woods’ impeccable resume at Torrey Pines.

Woods has won eight times at the South Course, tying his own record for PGA TOUR wins at a single site. That includes that memorable U.S. Open playoff in 2008.

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When healthy, Woods is seemingly unbeatable on the South Course. And he’s proven to be the greatest closer in the game’s history. As a professional, Woods is undefeated with a 54-hole lead of three or more strokes. He’s 25 for 25 in that situation.

That makes the idea of Tiger Woods losing a five-shot lead at Torrey Pines seem unfathomable. But it happened at the 1992 Junior World Championship. Morales said he still hears about the win at least once a year.

“My kids think they have a famous dad,” Morales joked Tuesday. He now has three children (his oldest is 10) and is an entrepreneur living in Spain.

Morales was one of the top junior players on the planet in 1992. Each summer, he’d fly from his home in Venezuela to play tournaments in the United States.

The Junior World was one of the biggest events on the calendar. Woods had already won the tournament an unprecedented six times in various age brackets. So when he took a five-shot lead into the final round, a seventh title seemed like a certainty.

Except in golf, nothing is guaranteed. Even for Woods. Even at Torrey Pines. Woods shot 75 that day, including a triple-bogey at the seventh hole, and Morales won by three with a final-round 67. It was the best round of the tournament. Morales was 15 years old.

“He had a couple bad holes and I had a good start,” Morales said Tuesday. “After that, he wasn’t able to recover from the mistakes and I was having a very good day.”

With Woods chasing history at Torrey Pines this week – a victory would give him the PGA TOUR’s all-time wins record – I was curious to see what happened to Morales. Details of his career are sparse.

He played in the 1999 Open Championship, shooting 80-76 during that infamous week when Carnoustie was impossible. He competed on the Asian, European and Challenge tours. Morales wanted to travel the world, not play mini-tours, after his college career at UNLV, where his teammates included PGA TOUR winners Charley Hoffman, Chad Campbell, Chris Riley and Bill Lunde.

The Official World Golf Ranking’s site shows Morales made 50 starts between 1999 and 2005. His best finish was third in 2000 Indian Open. He tied Trevor Immelman, who’d win the Masters eight years later, that week. That was Morales’ only top-10.

There’s also a brief mention of Morales in a story about Woods’ first start after his emotional win in the 2006 Open Championship. After trying to Monday qualify for a nearby Korn Ferry Tour event, Morales headed to the Buick Open to see his old friend. Woods hugged Morales and spent 15 minutes reminiscing with him between shots in his practice round.

That was toward the end of Morales’ pro career. He retired after failing to have the success his junior results may have portended.

“I don’t know what happened,” Morales said Tuesday. “It was a lot of travel. I got very tired of the travel. I was 29 or 30 and I wanted to have a family and didn’t want time to go by. I wasn’t disappointed at all. I just took a different route. I still have all the best memories from all my years playing golf.”

The 1992 Junior World wasn’t the only time Woods and Morales went head-to-head. Later that year, they shared the 54-hole lead of the Junior Orange Bowl with Zimbabwe’s Lewis Chitengwa. Chitengwa, who died at age 26 of meningitis, won after Woods and Morales shot over par in the final round.

Woods and Morales were in contention again at the following year’s Junior World. They entered the final round tied for third place, three shots behind leader Chad Wright. Morales shot 70 to finish second, while Woods fired another final-round 75 to fall to fourth place. The winner? Future PGA TOUR winner Pat Perez.

Morales relishes the time he spent with Woods.

“He was No. 1 and I was right there in the top three (as a junior),” Morales said Tuesday. “We had a lot of fun. We practiced together, played practice rounds. He was so different than the other kids. He had a different focus and different mindset than everybody else. He wasn’t playing. It was amazing to see someone who had that discipline at that age.”

So how did Morales prevail on that day in 1992?

The trouble started at the seventh hole, where Woods made triple-bogey after hitting a shot out-of-bounds. Woods downplayed the significance of the miscue, though.

“It was really no problem,” he said at the time. “I still had a two-stroke lead.”

Morales birdied the next hole to pull within a stroke. Woods bogeyed the par-5 ninth, and bent the shaft of his 7-iron after striking a tree on his follow-through, to fall into a tie with Morales.

“I said, ‘Break the 7-iron, hurt my wrist or whatever; I’m just going to play the shot,’” Woods told reporters. "(After that), I tried not to hit a shot where I would need a 7-iron. And I didn’t need to. I was very lucky.”

Morales took the lead for good with a birdie two holes later.

Woods had his chances to catch Morales. Woods lipped out a 17-foot birdie putt on 14 that would have tied him for the lead. Woods suffered another lip-out on the next hole, the ball spinning almost 360 degrees around the cup. “Come on,” he yelled in disgust.

Woods’ 25-foot birdie putt on 16 stopped 2 inches short. Morales’ 12-foot birdie putt nearly stopped in front of the cup before trickling in.

Woods trailed by two on the final hole. He had just 185 yards remaining for his second shot to the same par-5 where he holed his famous bouncing birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open. There would be no magic this day, though. Woods’ 6-iron flew the green and bounded by the first tee, some 30 yards over the green.

“I guess the golfing gods weren’t with me,” Woods told reporters.

He’s had plenty of success at Torrey Pines since.