Eighteen-year old golf star Hunter Mahan, who is heading to USC in the fall, captured the 5A Texas State Championship last year.

It should have been a moment of celebration for Hunter Mahan. In just five years he had gone from a 9-year-old, barely bigger than the 3-wood he was trying to swing, to one of the more ballyhooed junior golfers in the 972 area code.

Mahan's exploits in and around his hometown of McKinney, Texas, had finally landed him in his first American Junior Golfing Association qualifying event: the 1997 Tom Kite Chrysler Junior Classic at Austin Country Club. Along with going up against the best young golfers in the nation, he was now able to enjoy such benefits as a gala for the youngsters after the tournament's opening round.

But even with the buzz of golfing excellence hovering around the dinner plates, it was clear to Mahan's mother, Cindy, that her only child wasn't a happy camper.

"I could really see Hunter was depressed," recalls Cindy. "Because it was his first tournament he didn't know a lot of kids, so he wasn't really talking a lot and he tends to internalize things anyway. Hunter has always been harder on himself than anyone. He gets really quiet."

The reason for the depression was in black and white on his scorecard - 85 strokes for 18 holes. It wasn't the kind of score the blond, baby-faced 14-year-old had come to expect, especially on this momentous day. And although there were two more rounds of golf still to be played, Mahan didn't have enough experience to realize that being dead last after the opening day wasn't the end of his dreams.

Fortunately for Mahan, his host that night knew dreams don't end with a day's worth of bogeys.

"He saw that I was really disappointed in the way I played, so he came over and started talking to me," says Mahan of his encounter with Tom Kite, who has won 17 Professional Golfing Association tournaments and is also a native of McKinney. "He told me that you can't win the tournament on the very first day and that I should just keep doing the kind of things I had been doing. I was shocked that he came over.

"It gave me a little more confidence in myself that I could do it. I stopped worrying about being competitive with the other golfers and just worried about myself. I just thought I could do it."

Now, it's debatable whether or not this brief moment in time is the reason Mahan went on to shoot a pair of 71s the following two days to win the tournament. And there is no scientific evidence that those few minutes have anything to do with the McKinney High senior currently being the No. 1 junior golfer in the entire country. But this much is clear - it's a gesture he will never forget.

"I don't know if it was a huge turning point, but it certainly propelled me to the next level," says Mahan, 18, who has committed to attend the University of Southern California in the fall. "That was definitely a building block."

And what a foundation it was.

Mahan garnered his elite ranking thanks to a list of achievements that rivals the same golfers he represents when sitting in front of his favorite computer game, "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf."

There are the first-place finishes in the Scott Robertson Memorial, the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, the North-South Junior Championship, the Western Junior Championship, the AJGA Scottsdale Junior Classic and the AJGA Polo Golf Junior Classic. Of course, there was the spot on the United States team in The Junior Match, the amateurs' version of the Ryder Cup.

And just for good measure, there are his three course records, one of which was notched on Ohio State University's Scarlet Course and displaced the mark held by some guy named Jack Nicklaus.

The days when Mahan's biggest challenge was how far he could hit a driving-range ball seem so long ago, but, in true motherly form, Cindy Mahan remembers those days perhaps more vividly than any of her son's high-stakes tournament victories.

"I would take him to the driving range when he was starting out and people started commenting on his swing right away. He had such a natural swing and always seemed to make contact," says Cindy, who has become a golfing fanatic thanks to Hunter and her husband, Monty, who maintains a 2 handicap. The family's passion for the sport is evidenced on an answering machine message that ends with Monty Mahan reminding callers to "Keep it down the center."

"I was amazed because I kept thinking (Hunter) was going to be like a typical kid and lose interest," continues Cindy. "I just kept reminding myself to be supportive. But he never lost interest in it. He's so dedicated to the game and I think it's partly because he has such a disciplined personality."

Mahan's commitment was starting to catch the eye of more than just his immediate relatives. Randy Smith, coach for Texas native and PGA star Justin Leonard, came into the picture when Mahan's skills were starting to take shape. He has been in the teen's corner ever since.

"The difference between Hunter and Justin is that Hunter was a little bigger than Justin was at an early age. Justin was really small and didn't hit it like Hunter, but that made him really concentrate on his short game," says Smith, who is currently the teaching professional at Royal Oaks Country Club in Dallas, where he earned the honor of 1996 PGA Pro of the Year.

"Hunter is really accurate and keeps the ball in play. Both he and Justin have the same kind of dedication to the game."

Mahan realizes that the ability to stay focused is a key element in anyone's quest to be the best. Sometimes it's a commitment that leaves very little time for his other favorite sport, fishing, or watching a little professional wrestling. But he knows hard work goes hand-in-hand with any potential rewards.

"It's sort of like work, but it's fun work," says Mahan. "Going out and playing golf with a friend definitely beats doing something like working at Micky D's. Sometimes, you work so much you get a little tired of it, but then you just need to take a little break."

Remarkably, it's the high school season that offers Mahan a brief respite from the pressures surrounding junior golf. Sure, he knows it was nice to win the 5A Texas State Championship last year, but it's clear that the summer tournaments are his true testing ground.

"I don't worry too much about the district and regional tournaments. It's just an entirely different kind of thing," says Mahan, who moved from Orange County, Calif., as an eighth-grader. "High school is good to test the stuff you are doing so you are playing well heading into the tournaments."

Mahan's next big adventure will be when he sets foot on the Southern Cal campus. Although USC men's golf coach Kurt Schuette isn't saying the golfer he calls "one of the top three players I ever recruited" will be his No. 1, the Trojans coach's expectations of Mahan are clearly high.

"Mentally, he's probably the No. 1 kid we've brought in from a maturity standpoint," says Schuette, who is losing just one starter from this season's team. "Hunter's biggest strength is his consistency, and he doesn't have a glaring weakness. If I had to pick one part of his game that stands out, it's his putting. He's a clutch putter who makes the putts when he needs to. It's obvious his experience has helped him.

"I'm not looking for him to come in and be an All-American in his freshman year. I'm just looking for him to bring his character and his leadership qualities. The kind of habits and traits he has developed should help the whole team, and I think it will elevate everyone's standards."