PINEHURST, N.C. — When Jimmy Ellis Jr. was 5, he picked up a golf club and swung it for the first time.

He showed off a natural, fluid swing that wowed his father, James Sr., and his grandfather, Frank Colosimo.

“We knew immediately,” James Sr. said.

Just five years later, Jimmy entered his first event on the U.S. Kids Pittsburgh Golf Tour and won it. He went on to win the tour’s player of the year award at age 10.

Now 13, the Butler native is the reigning tour champion and also is a two-time winner of the junior club championship at Butler Country Club.

He finished second in the Mizuno/USSSA South Carolina State Championship at River Oaks Country Club just outside of Myrtle Beach, S.C., at the end of June.

Starting today, Jimmy will tee off in his biggest event yet when he takes on golfers from all over the United States and 30 other countries in the Teen World Championships at the Pinehurst No. 8 course.

“The course is challenging and long,” Jimmy said.

But Jimmy doesn’t get the job done with majestic drives off the tee. He relies more on his short game to shoot low scores. He played a practice round on the course Wednesday and did quite well, he said.

He’s also still working on that short game.

“I make up for a lot with the short game,” he said. “I practice that more than anything else.”

The eighth-grader at Knoch middle school, is unflappable when he’s on the course. He’s also very social.

“The most fun thing about golf is meeting people around the country and around the world,” he said. “I have friends from all over and I text with them a lot.”

Jimmy said his average nine-hole score these days is 38. He said he’s going to have to do a whole lot better than that to win this tournament, which features some of the best junior golfers in the world.

It’s a three-round, 54-hole event that ends on Saturday.

“I’m going to have to shoot a 70, 70 and 70,” Jimmy said.

While that is possible, Jimmy is just hoping to finish in the top 50 so he can earn an automatic invite for next year’s event.

“That would be quite an accomplishment,” James Sr. said. “There are more than 1,000 golfers here.”

Jimmy already has some lofty goals for his golf future.

He will turn 14 next month and hopes to play for the Knoch High School team next year. Then, he hopes “to get a full boat in college.”

For now, he’s focusing on the tournament at hand — the biggest of his young life.

“It’s quite an experience,” he said.