ASU in the Pros Series: Golfer Billy Mayfair

Aside from the obvious current ASU golfers in the pros like Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm, Billy Mayfair is a Sun Devil golf icon.

As a Scottsdale, Ariz. resident and Phoenix native, Mayfair attended Arizona State where he had a memorable career.

Time at ASU

Even prior to attending Arizona State, Mayfair had won several junior tournaments and was even crowned as “golf junior’s hotshot” on the cover of Boys’ Life Magazine.

As a Sun Devil, Mayfair won the 1986 U.S. Public Amateur Links, a tournament that began in 1922 and was discontinued in 2014. A year later, Mayfair took home the U.S. Amateur Championship at Jupiter Hills Club in Florida as he beat Eric Rebbman, a University of Tennessee graduate. In 1987 and 1988, Mayfair captured the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship two years in a row.

In 1987, Mayfair won the Haskins award, which honored him as the nation’s best collegiate golfer. It’s an award only one other Sun Devil golfer, Mickelson, has won, and he won it three times.

Time in the Pros

Mayfair began his professional career in 1988 where he later went on to win five PGA Tour tournaments in five years.

His first PGA Tour win came in 1993 when he won the Greater Milwaukee Open. It was his best ever score of all five PGA Tour wins as he scored minus 18.

Two years later in 1995, he earned two more PGA Tour wins. In July, he won the Motorola Western Open by one stroke, then he captured the Tour Championship on an even score by three strokes in October.

His signature win may have came two years later when he defeated the then-22-year-old Tiger Woods in the Nissan Open in Los Angeles in 1998. That same year, Mayfair earned his final PGA Tour victory at the Buck Open over Scott Verplank by two strokes.