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.
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Morales relishes the time he took down Tiger at Torrey Pines - PGA TOUR/Perform Media
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