16 and Professional

Filed in archive Golf News on January 11, 2008

Courtesy: The daily telegraph

There was a time when a teenager turned professional and it made headlines around the world.

Perhaps it started with young tennis phenom, Tracy Austin, who turned pro at the age of 16 and won the U.S. Open tennis crown a year later, three months shy of her 17th birthday.

She became world number one at the age of 18. But injuries pretty much forced her out of the game at the age of 20.

Then came Michelle Wie at about the same age. She, too, as we know, is struggling to find her way in the game.

Ty Tryon has attempted the same thing on the men's side. He turned pro at 16, was touted as the next child star after Tiger Woods, but has fallen flat.

Last year, he competed on the Gateway Tour.

Canadian Richard Lee, who lives and golfs in Arizona, turned pro last year at the age of 16 and competed in the U.S. Open before a wrist injury forced him out in round two.

Now Japanese golfer, Ryo Ishikawa has done it, too. Turned professional at 16.

Last year, Ishikawa became the youngest golfer to win a professional event on the Japanese PGA tour. That tour has been struggling to regain its profile in Japan in the wake of so many successful young Japanese women on the LPGA tour.

Ishikawa is now the shining star for his home tour.

The question remains as it always has: can kids - should kids - handle the same pressure that adult pros handle?

The answers vary depending on who you listen to. Wie's parents, indeed the parents of all the above-mentioned individuals, would say "yes", otherwise wouldn't they have kept their kids in school and let them turn professional after college?

But history bears out that few child sports prodigies have managed to stick. The vast majority have crumbled under the pressure because their personalities haven't had time to develop the armor needed to take the punishing emotional blows.

In Great Britain, another 16 year old, Oscar Sharpe, is dead set on making the Walker Cup team next year, the second youngest player to ever do it.

Granted, the Walker Cup is an amateur event but Sharpe is building his entire life around turning pro. And guess who his coach is? David Leadbetter, who now guides Michelle Wie's swing.

Sharpe lives at the Leadbetter Academy in Florida where he rises at 5:30 and practices his short game for three hours before breakfast. He then goes to school from 9 until noon and hits the range for the rest of the day. Then, to the gym for a 90 minute workout.

Two years ago, he won four championships in Great Britain in the same summer.

Where does this drive to win come from at such a young age? I'm stumped to find an answer.

More and more, young adolescents barely out of childhood are tackling professional careers that adults have trouble coping with.

Let me say something a little outrageous: it reminds me of the child soldiers of Africa.