Kids’ success becoming a trend on PGA Tour
Sixteen-year-old high school junior Jordan Spieth of Dallas stole the show last week at the Byron Nelson Championship, contending for the lead before fading Sunday to a tie for 16th.
Almost lost in the hometown hero buzz was the age of winner Jason Day, a 22-year-old from Australia who sounded as if he had waited an eternity for his first PGA Tour victory.
“It’s been a hard, tough road for me,” Day said. “I’ve had a lot of negative thoughts go through my head. Just thinking this year, I haven’t played that well and was like, ‘If I don’t secure my card this year, where am I?’ I would always think of what jobs I could do.”
Nearly washed up at 22? It’s the new reality for professional golf, in which contenders are younger and younger. Day is the ninth player in his 20s to win this year on the PGA Tour and third in the last four weeks.
“Young players have evolved so much quicker. They’re stronger, bigger, better athletes, more competitively attuned,” said Tom Pernice, 50, who played with Spieth on Saturday. “They work out and do all the things that, when I was 16, we didn’t do, so they’re ahead of the game.”
While improvements in equipment and fitness have kept players like Tom Watson, Fred Couples, Vijay Singh and Kenny Perry competitive at advanced ages, they also have allowed younger players to compete earlier.
Spieth’s performance last weekend was topped last year by Italy’s Matteo Manassero, who at 16 became the youngest winner of the British Amateur, then finished 13th at the British Open.
Ryo Ishikawa, 18, has seven victories on the Japan Tour. Last month at Quail Hollow, Ireland’s Rory McIlroy became the first player since Tiger Woods to win a PGA Tour event before turning 21. Other winners this year include Anthony Kim, 24; Dustin Johnson, 25; and 28-year-olds Hunter Mahan, Camilo Villegas and Bill Haas. On the verge of a breakthrough is Rickie Fowler, 21, who has six top-10s in eight months on tour.
One factor contributing to the rise of younger players has been the growth of the American Junior Golf Association and International Junior Golf Tour, both of which provide players with opportunities to compete against the best juniors from America and beyond.
Another factor is the effect of Woods. When he won the 1997 Masters, McIlroy, for example, was an impressionable 7-year-old.
“Tiger was the guy we all looked up to and the guy that we followed and the guy we turned on our TV and the [reason] that we went out to practice so hard,” McIlroy said. “He’s been the reason that the likes of Ryo, myself, [Kim], Danny Lee, all the younger guys, have flourished at such an early age because Tiger set the benchmark so high.”
What does Spieth need to do to continue along the path of his young predecessors? Day answered the question Sunday.
“The advice I would give him is keep at it, keep learning, keep playing a lot of tournaments and try to win as many as you can and make it a habit,” Day said. “Keep pushing through no matter what happens.”
Ah, the voice of experience.
