Jay Sigel Is Still Content to Remain an Amateur Golfer

The country’s most heralded career amateur golfer still in competition attributes much of his success to the father of Arnold Palmer.

Jay Sigel, 44, who became the first amateur inducted into the All-American Collegiate Hall of Fame in mid-July, recalled that Deac Palmer lifted the confidence and corrected the hook of a player destined to win back-to-back U.S. Amateur titles in 1982-83 and the British Amateur crown in 1979.

“My father called Deac and asked him if he’d work with me,” said Sigel. “He said yes, so my dad and I traveled to Latrobe, Pa. I had to be at the practice tee at 8 a.m. The first thing Deac did was send my dad away. Then, on my first shot, I almost shanked Arnold’s head off--he was practicing a few yards away. I ended up hitting until about noon. Mr. Palmer said I had a swing like Tony Lema’s.”

Lema’s pro career was cut short by a fatal plane crash. Sigel’s was almost ended by a freak accident in 1963 while a sophomore at Wake Forest.

“I was trying to hold open a dormitory door for a fraternity brother,” Sigel said, “and my hand went through the glass. It ruptured the ulnar nerve, which is the crazy bone nerve.”

Sigel had begun college at the University of Houston before heeding the advice of Arnold Palmer and transferring after one semester to Wake Forest.

A first team All-American as a freshman, Sigel played only briefly as a sophomore because of the injury that sidelined him a total of 11 months but he made second team All-American that year probably “because someone felt sorry for me.”

The injury left him with 65-percent strength in his right hand--the power hand of a golf swing. Yet, Sigel downplays resulting handicaps.

“I didn’t do too much with my swing,” said Sigel. “I had to balance my grip, actually lessening the tightness of the my right hand on the club. I also had to re-evaluate my goals.”

Despite the injury, Sigel set his sights on making the U.S. team in the Walker Cup matches between the U.S. and Great Britain. In 1977, he achieved that goal which he called “the pinnacle of my career.”