TOP young Bermuda golfer Nick Jones could easily identify with the pain the best players in the world suffered when all told they put 51 balls into the water at the notorious 17th par-three hole at the TPC Sawgrass layout last week during the Players Championship.

After all Jones has been there himself!

Jones, who recently received $4,520 from the National Junior Athletes Sponsorship Programme to further his golf career, played in a 36-hole X-Factor tournament at Sawgrass last year and played the 17th twice.

"I hit the water one day and managed to get on the green the next day," said Jones of the most recognisable hole in golf.

"That hole can be intimidating, especially when the tournament is on the line. However watching the Players Championship brought back good memories for me," said the 16-year-old Saltus student and son of local pro Eardley Jones.

All in all it is estimated that 150,000 balls are hit in the 17th water hazard every year ? an average of more than three ka-plunks per player based on the resort course's average of 45,000 rounds.

This year will prove to be a big one for Jones. Later this month he flies off to Florida to compete in an X-Factor event at the Royal Palm Beach course in West Palm Beach and while in Florida he will meet with golf coach Ken Leech at the Grandview Preparatory School in Boca Raton. Leech is also the organiser of the X-Factor tour.

"The X-Factor tournament in West Palm Beach is over 36 holes and I will visit the school on the second day I am there," said Jones this week.

Right now he is at Saltus and after finishing his GCSE 'O' Levels in June Jones will play tournaments in the summer before starting at the Grandview school where he will stay for a year. "I will be working on my SAT scores before going to college the following year," he said. Jones has yet to decide on what college he will go to but said: "I would like to go to a Division One college and preferably in Floriday or Arizona where you play 12 months a year."

And after that he hopes to eventually make it on the PGA Tour.

But Jones knows it will be tough as top Bermuda pro Michael Sims is finding out. Of Sims, Jones said: "I haven't had the honour of playing with him but I have watched him and he hits the ball really, really well."

The money he gained from the Junior Athletes Sponsorship Programme will help Jones to attend a number of X-Factor tournaments this summer.

Among those tournaments will be the July 15-16 event in Miami, the tourney from July 29-30 at Fort Myers, the tournament from August 5-6 at the University of Florida, Gainsville and later that month the tournament at Naples, Florida.

Although Jones is just 16 he has already had significant wins both in Junior golf events and success in Bermuda Golf Association men's events. Last summer was quite successful. In July he won the X-Factor Junior Golf tournament in the 14-15 age group in Gainesville, Florida. He followed this win by winning the 15 and over age group in the Bermuda Junior Golf Atlantic tournament at Port Royal which included seven boys from Atlanta, Georgia in the field. That was his third win in the Atlantic as he won the 10-11 age group in 2000 and the 11 -12 age group in 2001. Jones then returned to Florida in September and placed second in another X-Factor junior event, in the 14-15 age group, at the Legends at Orange Lake in Orlando, Florida. In October he was invited by the coach of the X-Factor Junior Golf Tour to play on their team for the Golfing Magazine Junior Golf Championship at the Bonita Bay Club in Naples, Florida. In the 14-15 age group, his score was one of the three scores that counted enabling the team to finish in first place against other teams in Florida.

In the men's tournaments of the BGA last year he reached the quarterfinal of the Matchplay event at Mid Ocean in March and also won the net championship in the Bermuda Strokeplay played at Port Royal in June. In partnership with Pat Morgan he placed second in the Bermuda Mixed Foursomes in September played at Tuckers Point.

This month Jones won a playoff to represent Bermuda in the Callaway Golf Junior World Championship to be held the week of July 11-14 in San Diego, California at the Torrey Pines Golf Course, the site of the US Open. Blair Marshall was also selected to represent Bermuda in the 15-17 age group. Marshall is currently at school in the US.

And just recently he won the Consolation flight of the Bermuda Golf Association Men's Amateur Championship.

Jones' handicap index is 3.2, which is the lowest of the juniors currently playing in Bermuda.