A rising sophomore at Houston's Second Baptist School, Travis Vick turned 16 on May 3. On Monday, the sweetest swinging 16-year-old on the planet went out and shot an Honors Course-record 64 to grab the first-round lead at the U.S. Junior Amateur.
That's right. A course-record 64. At 16. Even Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson never shot that low at the Honors.
At this rate, Vick may make fellow Texan Jordan Spieth a has-been before he's 30.
Not that golf is his lone star turn. He's got a 3.5 grade point average. He starts at quarterback and linebacker on the football team. He's a standout pitcher and third baseman in baseball. His head couldn't be screwed on straighter if his parents had used a power drill and a level.
Merely consider this quote a few minutes before he and his father, Trey, headed out to the practice green following his record round: "Church is my first priority, any way you look at it."
Too bad he's too young to run for President, though he does go to the same high school that former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz attended.
But regardless of his precociousness in every sport - he reportedly was a pretty fair power forward before giving up basketball - what Vick does best at the moment is play golf.
"I think Travis has unlimited potential," four-time Ryder Cup participant Hal Sutton, who works with Vick on the mental side of golf, said during an interview with a Texas media outlet last year. "He's strong. He's got an unbelievable demeanor. He doesn't get rattled easily."
Obviously. While Spieth often has struggled since his final-round meltdown at Augusta in April, Vick blew a six-stroke lead in the final round of the Jordan Spieth Championship event on July 8 yet somehow shook it off well enough to post the first-round lead in the Junior Am.
Even at the Spieth, he rallied enough mentally to drain a 30-footer on the first playoff hole to keep his hopes alive a little longer.
Yet if you think he's doing all this to make amends for the Spieth loss and coming up a stroke short of last year's Junior Am stroke-play medal, after bogeying the final hole, you'd be wrong.
"The top priority," the redhead said, "is to play to the best of your ability and have fun."
It would seemingly be more than a little fun to have Vick's coaches to guide you, especially his baseball coaches at Second Baptist. Former major league All-Star Lance Berkman is the head coach and former New York Yankees great Andy Pettitte is the college prep school's pitching coach.
"Coach Berkman has converted me from a right-handed hitter to a left-handed hitter for baseball," said Vick, a lifelong righty everywhere except the batter's box. "He said that while baseball swings and golf swings have lots of similarities, there are major differences that could hurt your golf swing."
He also said that while the change has raised his batting average a bit, concentrating on golf this summer has left him with too small a sample size to say for certain that he's a better left-handed hitter than a right-handed one.
His father says of his 5-foot-11, 178-pound son's quarterback skills in Second Baptist's spread offense: "He's a pocket passer, but he'll run over you."
He certainly ran over the Honors' treacherous layout Monday, including five birdies - holes 11, 12, 14, 17 and 18 - on the back nine.
"My ball striking was good today," Vick said. "Lots of fairways, lots of greens."
Though Berkman has gone on record as saying he believes Vick is talented enough to earn a college scholarship in all three sports he currently plays, the nation's top-ranked golfer in the high school graduating class of 2019 would appear to have the best chance at making serious green by aiming for greens.
Not that he yet sees it that way.
Asked his favorite sport, Vick replied, "Whatever sport I'm playing at that time."
Nor is he terribly forthcoming about which college he may eventually grace with his exceptional talents.
When asked his favorite college football team, his father answered, "If we said, we might tip our hat for college coaches who are recruiting him to other schools. We don't have a favorite right now. We're wide open."
Despite Vick's opening-round salvo, this tournament would appear to be pretty wide open heading into the final day of stroke play, weather permitting. Fellow Houston resident Cole Hammer is one stroke back, with Won Jun Lee two behind. No fewer than 18 are under par.
So what does a fresh-faced, outrageously talented 16-year-old do to get away from all these diverse athletic pressures?
"I hunt a lot," Vick said. "Deer. Hogs. I really like to go out around midnight and hunt wild boars."
Midnight. Darkness all around. If Vick keeps hitting it, pitching it and putting it the way he did Monday, moving his tee time to midnight might be the only way left to keep him from winning this 69th Junior Am.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.