October 14, 2007
Adminstaff Small Business Classic
October 12, 2007
Adminstaff Small Business Classic
Mark Francis O'Meara (born January 13, 1957) is a
professional golfer who was a prolific tournament
winner on the PGA Tour and around the world from the
mid 1980s to the late 1990s. He spent nearly 200
weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf
Rankings from their debut in 1986 to 2000.
O'Meara was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, but
grew up in southern California in Mission Viejo, and
took up golf at age 13, sneaking on to the nearby
Mission Viejo Country Club. He later became an
employee of the club and played on his high school
golf team. He was an All-American at Long Beach
State, and won the U.S. Amateur in 1979, defeating
John Cook. After graduating with a degree in
marketing in 1980, O'Meara turned professional and
would win 16 events on the PGA Tour, starting with
the Greater Milwaukee Open in 1984. He won the AT&T
Pebble Beach National Pro-Am four times, but he
passed his 41st birthday in January 1998 without
having won a major championship as a professional.
In a late finale to his PGA Tour winning career,
O'Meara won two majors in 1998, The Masters and the
British Open. O'Meara attributed this resurgence
partly to the inspiration of working with Tiger
Woods, the new superstar of the game at the time,
with whom O'Meara had become good friends. In the
same year he won the Cisco World Match Play
Championship and he reached a career best of second
in the Official World Golf Rankings.
O'Meara is known for competing outside the United
States more often than most leading American
golfers, and has won tournaments in Europe, Asia,
Australia and South America. A man with a genial
demeanour, he is one of the most popular figures in
international golf. In the new millennium his form
took a downturn and he began to struggle with
injuries, but in 2004 he won an official tour event
for the first time since 1998, taking the Dubai
Desert Classic title, which despite being played in
Asia is a European Tour event.
In 2007, O'Meara entered his first season on the
Champions Tour.
O'Meara has begun to develop a golf course design
practice and enjoys fishing in his off time.
