Teenagers taking over the fairways

Published on Saturday 28 February 2009 18:55

THE INEXORABLE march of time waits for no golfer. Not even Superman is immune. So the inevitability of his eventual usurping atop the world rankings is a subject about which Tiger Woods has long been philosophical.

Asked where his successor as the planet's No.1 is likely to emerge, the already 14-time major champion cites the academic joke and bastion of blatant 'shamateurism' that is the American college golf system, where apparently lurks any number of gargantuan hitters liable to render even the mighty Woods no more than average off the tee.

Such a perspective is a long way from unanimous though. There is plenty of evidence that America's position as the world's most powerful golfing nation is less secure than it was. (Only 17 of Uncle Sam's nephews teed up in last week's Accenture World Match Play; in 1999 there were 36 Yanks in the 64-strong field). But Woods' compatriots are hardly alone in their inability to consistently challenge the now 33-year-old Tiger who may still – frighteningly – be some way short of his peak. All of which only adds credence to the notion that the next truly great golfer is right now a shorts- wearing, spotty-faced adolescent more interested in birds than birdies. Both camps, however, may be forced to think again in view of recent events. In a game where the average participants at club level are ageing to the point where they are close to dying on their soft spikes, golf's sharp end has suddenly and gratifyingly been invaded by a teenage gang-of-three – Rory McIlroy, Danny Lee and Ryo (pronounced "Yo") Ishikawa – intent on making their points right now. Young guns indeed.

Such a phenomenon is relatively new in men's professional golf, certainly in terms of so many new and unshaven faces arriving at once. Where the women's game has long seen wee lassies in their mid-to-late teens capable of contending in the biggest events, it has traditionally taken longer for physically less mature laddies to achieve similar heights.

Not any more though. In these increasingly precocious times, youngsters are more able to look leading professionals in the eye. By way of example, McIlroy's maiden professional victory in the recent Dubai Desert Classic made the 19-year-old Ulsterman the youngest ever top-20 player. Ishikawa already has two wins on the Japanese Tour; his first, the 2007 Mizuno Open, came when he was but 15 and still an amateur. And the 18-year-old Lee, already the US Amateur champion, only last week won the Johnnie Walker Classic, making four birdies in his last six holes to take the game's only tri-sanctioned (by the European, Australasian and Asian Tours) tournament by one shot.

Modern equipment has played a large part in this rush of young blood. Sadly, golf at the highest level is a lot less sophisticated than it used to be. And, while the questions asked (of players) remain difficult, they are typically mere tests of execution devoid of imagination and/or flair.

So it is that, where the separation between good and great used to have much to do with the aesthetically pleasing art form that was shot-making, today the game is more about raw power. Very early – much earlier than before – young players armed with the requisite talent and nerve to survive with the very best begin playing basically the same muscle-bound game favoured by their supposed superiors. Accompanied by squeals of anger and disappointment from purists everywhere, draw, fade and feather have been replaced by crash, bang and wallop.

Which is not to say that there is not a lot of fun to be had from watching this new generation of stars in action. There is, especially if one knows where and when to peek past the endlessly tedious blasting of shapeless drives into the middle distance and beyond. Artistry has not yet completely lost out to science, even if the game's rule-makers on both sides of the Atlantic show no sign of developing any semblance of courage in that department. Indeed, when it comes to taking on the 'dark side' also known as the equipment manufacturers and their bewildering number of patents protected by hordes of expensive lawyers, the R&A and the United States Golf Association are about as useful as ashtrays on motorbikes.

Anyway, the best known of our trio of new stars, McIlroy, is bucking that depressing descent into sameness. The Ulsterman, brought up on the world-class links in his homeland, has answers for any and all of proper golf's myriad questions. One can only hope that, as he plays more and more of his golf on America's PGA Tour he does not, as so many have, find himself being very good at a very narrow form of the game he plays so well.

Admittedly based on only a few holes watched at the Australian Masters and Open at the end of last year, that fate has, to a large extent, already befallen Lee. Although clearly gifted, the young New Zealander by way of South Korea plays golf like too many of his fellow competitors. There certainly wasn't a great variety to his shot-making prowess. "High and straight" was very much the order of the days in question. How he would fare in a strong breeze is open to question.

As for Ishikawa, his PGA Tour debut at the Northern Trust Open last week, where he failed to qualify for the weekend by three shots (in 1992 an 18-year-old Tiger missed the cut by six in the same event), was marked by an impetuous tendency to hit a driver where something shorter might have made more sense. Still, the charismatic Japanese possesses a beautifully rhythmic swing and displays a great sense of what makes a good sound-bite in these increasingly media-savvy times. His Tiger take-off – "Hello America" – during a packed pre-tournament press conference was a masterstroke.

Ah, the confidence and wisdom of youth. Let's hope all three of them can continue to shoot as straight as they talk.