I was maybe only 13 or 14 when I started to play junior tournaments.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I felt I could play in maybe a dozen tournaments a year as an amateur.
I had two older brothers, so I was always competing with them. The guys I grew up with on the golf course, when I was 13, they were 15 or 16, and I was always trying to beat them.
I started when I was 8 years old, which is obviously nowadays pretty late, but I guess in my generation it was all right. I had plenty of other interests and I didn't do only tennis.
I started tennis around age 2.
When I was 13, I looked like I could play 16, and I wasn't mature enough to play 16.
I was heavily into sport from 10 to 15, I was in all the teams, and it was everything to me. But I was very young for my school year and when puberty kicked in for my classmates I got left behind.
As a kid, I wanted to be a pro tennis player. I was pretty good; at the tennis academies I attended, I always 'played up' against older age groups.
From the time I won the Kansas City Match Play championship at age 14, I never wanted to be anything but a golfer.
I began playing in the senior circuit when I was 15 and won the world senior amateur title the same year.
When I was 7, my dad asked his friend to teach me. I played my first tournament competition when I was 8. I remember I shot around 125.