The name Bo has a distinct place in American culture. It invokes the soul of R&B musician Bo Diddley, the jaw-dropping athleticism of Bo Jackson, the old-school mentality of Bo Schembechler, the biting comedic musings of Bo Burnham or the faux drama of Days of Our Lives character Bo Brady.
So naturally the five-letter name of Bo Jin – a rising star at Oklahoma State who grew up in China, Singapore and California – is both curious and noticeable when scrolling through leaderboards of top amateur events.
It’s been showing up a lot more often than not these days.
Bo Jin’s fledgling stardom began at the junior golf level when he finished runner-up in both the U.S. Junior and the Junior Players Championship in 2019. His recruitment to Oklahoma State began not with coach Alan Bratton reaching out to him, but the other way around. Amongst the countless forms of unsolicited outreach from aspiring juniors that Bratton sifts through on a routine basis, Jin called to say that OSU sat atop his list.
“You’d love every really good player to do that,” Bratton joked.
He’s glad he took the phone call. Jin came to Stillwater, Oklahoma, in the fall of 2020 and went on to earn second-team All-America and first-team All-Big 12 honors his freshman campaign while notching consecutive runner-up finishes in the Big 12 Championship, NCAA Stillwater Regional and NCAA Championship.
Had a 10-foot par putt dropped on the 72nd hole of the NCAA Championship, an event he led for much of the proceedings, Jin would have forced a playoff with Clemson’s Turk Pettit. It just slipped by the edge, sending Jin to his knees and Pettit to the individual title.
“I hit a good putt but I misread it,” Jin recalled five months later. “Under pressure, everything changes. It was a great experience for me.”
Great experience seems to follow Bo Jin. In 10 college starts last spring, he never finished outside the top 25. By the summer, the amateur golf community realized his game translated well to other elite events as he picked up three straight top-10 results in the Sunnehanna, Maridoe and Pacific Coast Amateurs. A round of 32 appearance in the U.S. Amateur at Oakmont helped deliver Jin into the top 15 of the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
He’s 6-foot-4 with a powerful build but considers his short game the backbone of why he continues to put himself in contention.
And then, finally, there was this past weekend in the Asia-Pacific Amateur. Jin had never been to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, but he sought local knowledge and advice from Oklahoma State teammate Rayhan Thomas who calls the Dubai Creek and Yacht Club his home course. Jin’s brother, Cheng, won the Asia-Pacific Amateur back in 2015 after shooting a 62 in the opening round, earning an invitation to the following year’s Masters, and the younger Jin had designs on repeating that.
A 7-under 64 in the second round gave Jin the 36-hole lead, and he went on to finish tied for third at 12-under par just two shots out of a playoff won by WAGR No. 1 Keita Nakajima of Japan.
At this point, it’s more than clear: You should know about Bo.
He started playing golf in Beijing at the age of 6, and his family moved to Singapore a year later. After seven years there, his family followed his brother Cheng, who had decided to play his college golf at Southern Cal. They settled in Encinitas just north of San Diego close to Torrey Pines.
Why the move? This is a serious golf family, and they all thought better facilities would be helpful to the collective development of three talented Jins.
Cheng, who has struggled as a pro and currently sits outside the top 1,000 in the OWGR, had a stellar amateur career with not only the APAC triumph but a big victory in the 2016 Players Amateur. He was also the first amateur to win on PGA Tour China, capturing a victory as a 16-year-old.
And then there is the younger sister, Jiarui, who goes by the name Joyce. She was a co-medalist at the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur and a Rolex All-American as a junior. Joyce followed in Cheng’s footsteps, signing with USC where she began her college career this fall.
But then there is Bo, the one who wanted to get out of California and chart his own path.
He’s 6-foot-4 with a powerful build but considers his short game the backbone of why he continues to put himself in contention. The 19-year-old has dabbled with occasional swing guidance from instructors, but prefers to rely on his Oklahoma State coaches and his older brother when it comes to advice.
When you go to watch a college tournament, it’s obvious which players are thinking about the mechanics of their swing and which ones are simply playing the game with a see-target/hit-target mentality. Jin not only falls into the latter category, but his coaches rave about how he can show strength in vulnerability by actively listening to words of guidance.
“A lot of kids get defensive when you point out weaknesses, but he has none of that,” Bratton said. “He’s confident enough to be coachable … he’s just a great competitor and does a great job of putting setbacks behind him.”
Jin has encountered a few setbacks, if you can call them that. His last win in a WAGR-counting event came almost four years ago. When asked if those runner-up finishes he earned have frustrated him or inspired him, Jin talks about being ahead of schedule in some respects as he develops.
Even when he started at Oklahoma State, Jin had the worst score out of six Cowboys in his first event. He got benched after that, but immediately came back with a top-five finish in the Maridoe Invitational to close out the fall semester.
"To be up there as a freshman competing against players who are older than me, it just encouraged me to move forward and know I am able to win."
BO JIN
As the year progressed, Jin’s wedge play and putting hit new levels. He placed himself on the doorstep of some major amateur titles.
“It’s a lot of motivation for me,” Jin said. “I knew I was right there to win those three events, but I had never been on such a big stage before. To be up there as a freshman competing against players who are older than me, it just encouraged me to move forward and know I am able to win.”
That’s just in Jin’s DNA. Although English is his second language and he understandably stutters as he talks, Jin has a strong rapport with his teammates because of his positive demeanor. It’s rare to find him upset.
“A lot of times kids are hesitant to speak when they are in their second language, but he’s talkative, he’s funny, he’s quick-witted,” Bratton said. “He’s very kind. He’s just a nice kid. He doesn’t have a bad thing to say about anybody.”
It’s early in his college career, but Jin could develop into one of the best Chinese players in the game. There isn’t a single male pro from China in the top 300 of the OWGR as Haotong Li has fallen to No. 485 as of this writing. Shanshan Feng has carried the torch in the women’s game – winning a major championship, an Olympic bronze medal and reaching No. 1 in the world – but she’s been pondering retirement.
It’s a lot to ask of a teenager, but the eastern world would explode with excitement if a prominent Chinese men’s player could emerge and join the world’s elite.
Who knows? It could be Bo.
Top: Bo Jin's second-round 64 in Dubai vaulted him into the midway lead at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship. He eventually finished T3.
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