Junior Golf - Jacqueline Williams

Vivacious, outgoing, charitable, and highly intelligent, 18- year-old Jacqueline Williams of Fair Oaks is more than anything else a believer. She believes in herself, first and foremost. She believes what she is doing now will allow her to reach her many goals in life. One of those big goals is to win her way to the LPGA Tour - and all things considered, this is no pipe dream.

With her obvious determination, dedication to the sport, practice ethic, and passion for competition that boils down to an appreciation of every stroke she plans, who's to stop her? Add in her keen mind (multiple years winning academic honors and a GPA of 4.3) and her utterly radiant smile, well, anyone who meets her ought to come away as a believer, too.

Jacqueline first played golf when she was 10 with her grandfather Joe. At age 12, something inside the child clicked, something beyond her years: not only did she find herself hooked on golf, she found she had the ability, both physical and mental, to play at a high level and constantly improve.

So she joined The First Tee of Greater Sacramento program, breaking 100 in her first event and then carding consistently better rounds into the 70s. From her home course at North Ridge Country Club, she rocketed her way to being #1 and Captain three straight years on the Loretto High School team (twice being named the Capital League MVP), enjoyed a stretch where she won eight out of 13 events, and qualified for the prestigious Callaway Junior World Golf Championships last year. She recently earned a scholarship to the University of California (Berkeley), where she will play for Coach Nancy McDaniel, who called her, "a perfect fit for our program."

How does she do it? Jacqueline trains six days a week, including two days in the gym for up to three hours, one day a week with her swing coach Brett Taylor, and a day with coach Sarah Huarte on the all important short game as well as the mental game. She does lots of work on the range, of late especially learning to shape shots, and more on the practice green, which is paying big dividends. "I am so confident in my putting now; I feel like I am going to make any put from 5-feet in," Jacqueline beams. One other thing she does is play a round with her father, Kevin, every weekend. Her USGA Index now stands at 3.8.

"Jacqueline is completely self-directed," says her mother Virginia. "Her father and I don't watch her practice, we don't schedule her lessons or even go to her matches. From the beginning she has taken complete ownership of selecting tournaments, building her schedule and getting herself to the tournaments to play. Golf is her thing, not ours. And for what she has done so far, we couldn't be more proud of her.

Of the events she has played to date, Jacqueline points to the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach and Del Monte golf courses as tops so far. This competition pairs 78 leading juniors with 78 Champions Tour pros over three days. After passing a grueling qualifying process, Jacqueline got to rub shoulders with all-time greats such as Hale Irwin, Craig Stadler, and Dr. Gil Morgan, as well as partner up with Denis Watson in the tournament.

"Pebble Beach is just an unbelievable place and a true test of golf," she says appreciatively. "To do well there, you can't just make great shots, you have to make amazing shots." While she didn't win this time, she came away pleased with her effort, "mostly because I improved my score each round I played, from 81 to 77 to 73. That just reinforced my belief in my approach to the sport."