Bo Van Pelt finished second to Tiger Woods in the AT&T National on Sunday. Photo by Kevin Dunleavy
There seemed inevitability to Sunday’s match-play duel between Tiger Woods and Bo Van Pelt in the final round of the AT&T National. Van Pelt is a highly accomplished player who has won nearly $17 million, but has just one PGA Tour win with 44 top-10s. Woods, however, has 74 PGA Tour wins and 14 major championships.
Van Pelt was born seven months before Woods and the two competed in national-level junior tournaments, the U.S. Amateur, and in college, Van Pelt at Oklahoma State and Woods at Stanford.
After Woods’ two stroke victory, Van Pelt had this to say, providing interesting insight on their relative status in the game – Woods who aspires to greatness and Van Pelt who does not.
“The impressive part as another golfer and just as an athlete is that he’s had a focus from the time, a very young age, to be the best player there ever was, and he’s spent his whole life doing something about it,” Van Pelt said. “A lot of people say they want to do something but they don’t back it up. I feel like he’s backed it up his whole life from the time he was a young child, and that’s impressive. I know for me I love golf and I’ve loved golf ever since I’ve started playing, but I’ve had periods of time where I didn’t like golf that much and wasn’t doing that much about getting better at it. To me that’s impressive.”
