Jay Sigel, one of the best amateur golfers of all-time, died Saturday. He was 81 years old.
The U.S. Golf Association confirmed his passing Sunday.
Sigel put together one of the greatest amateur resumes in golf history before turning professional and compiling eight victories on the PGA Tour Champions. He won consecutive U.S. Amateur titles in 1982 and 1983. Sigel also won three U.S. Mid-Amateurs in 1983, ’85 and ’87. He remains the only player to win the U.S. Am and U.S. Mid-Am in the same year.
As if that wasn’t enough, he also competed in nine Walker Cups, the most of any player in the event’s history. Two of those appearances came as a playing captain.
His amateur resume doesn’t stop there. He captured the 1979 British Amateur title, has 10 wins in the Pennsylvania Amateur, four Pennsylvania Open victories, and three wins at each of these prestigious amateur event: Porter Cup, Sunnehanna Amateur and Northeast Amateur.
He also competed in 11 consecutive Masters tournaments from 1978-88, making the cut four times and winning low amateur honors in 1980, 1981 and 1988.
Sigel played collegiately at Wake Forest, where he was was an All-American. When he turned 50 in 1993, Sigel finally turned pro, winning PGA Tour Champions Rookie of the Year in 1994. He amassed eight wins on the circuit.
He was born and raised in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 13, 1943, and grew up playing golf at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. He attended high school at Lower Merion High School in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Wake Forest in 1967 with a degree in sociology.
He decided not to turn pro after finishing play at Wake Forest, where he was the first person to earn the Arnold Palmer Scholarship, thanks to an accident where Sigel’s left hand went through a pane of glass on a swinging door. He needed 70 stitches on his wrist and spent nine days in the hospital.
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