TOUR Insider: Teens add life to the game, but at a price

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Rory McIlroy (left), Danny Lee and Ryo Ishikawa (right) are three of the top teenage golfers in the world today.

MARANA, Ariz. -- When he was 17 years old, Zach Johnson was worried about getting to soccer practice and squeezing in time to hit balls on the range. He thought about his schoolwork on occasion, too.

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"(And) where I was going out on Friday night," Johnson said with a grin.

He was not contemplating making his PGA TOUR debut as Ryo Ishikawa did last week at the Northern Trust Open. Or winning on the European Tour like 18-year-olds Rory McIlroy -- who makes his World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship debut this week -- and Danny Lee, who is still an amateur, have done in the last four weeks.

"I probably wouldn't know which tee to go off if I was 17 trying to play on the PGA TOUR," said Hunter Mahan, who did play in the Travelers Championship as a teenage amateur, missing the cut by a stroke.

"But to do it, to be a pro, I've got no chance at that. I wouldn't know what to do. I would probably have to call my mom and go, "What do I do? I want to eat, what do I do?"

Johnson didn't win his first TOUR event until he was 28 and a veteran of the Prairie Tour and Nationwide Tour. Mahan was 25, a former NCAA player of the year, when he came back to Hartford and captured his first pro title.

But Ishikawa won his first of two titles on the Japan Tour when he was 15. And McIlroy, the precocious young Irishman, beat Justin Rose by a stroke last month at the Dubai Desert Classic with Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey and Henrik Stenson also in the field.

Lee's win on Sunday made the reigning U.S. Amateur champ the youngest winner on the European Tour at 18 years and 213 days. He'll turn pro after he plays in the Masters and has the option of joining the Asian Tour, European Tour or PGA Tour of Australasia.

"It's the new young crop of players," Tiger Woods noted Tuesday. "It's good to see the game is youthful. ... We need that injection of new blood in our sport."

We've seen that injection before.

Aaron Baddeley won the Australian Open as an 18-year-old amateur. Sean O'Hair and Tadd Fujikawa both turned pro while still in high school. So did a then-17 Rose the day after he tied for fourth at the 1998 Open Championship.

And don't forget Garcia, who was 19 when he first captured our consciousness in that duel with Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship at Medina.

For every Garcia and Baddeley, though, there is a Ty Tyron, who decided to play for pay too soon. He made the cut at The Honda Classic in 2001 at the age of 16, then earned his TOUR card the following year. He had a swing coach and a sports psychologist before he had his driver's license.

Tonsillitis and mononucleosis limited Tryon to six TOUR events in 2002 and he only made four cuts in 17 starts in '03 after getting a medical extension. A stint on the Nationwide Tour in 2004 yielded just over $9,000 with his highest finish in six made cuts a tie for 48th. Tryon went back to qualifying school this year but didn't advance past the first stage after a dismal 87 in the third round.

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Ty Tryon earned his TOUR card at the age of 17 but has struggled ever since.

Dr. Dick Coop, a noted sports psychologist who works with many of the game's leading players, is wary of the trend.

"He's the poster child for what you don't want to happen," Coop said. "Even (Michelle) Wie is a mixed blessing. Did she have to go through what she went through to get to where she is now? I don't think so.

"The main thing is to let the child's interest tell you where to go how fast to go.... When you take the lead and push is when you get in trouble."

Like Tryon, many of these young players have been groomed for success since they were children too young to know their own mind. Some have found success quickly.

"I started playing at the age of two," McIlroy said.

The baby-faced McIlroy said technology has helped younger players compete against the veterans. Not to mention, amateurs play around the world now, although most in the United States opt for college golf before turning pro.

"I don't know if it's just that we have all just came along at the same time, or it will be a recurrence in the future," McIlroy said. "But it seems like golfers are becoming a lot better a lot younger and I think it's great for the game."

Expectations, though, can place an undue burden on these young players. Take Rose, for example. He first picked up a club at 11 months and had a plus-1 handicap when he was 14. Yet he missed his first 17 cuts as a pro on the European Tour and really didn't hit his stride until 2002.

"It's complex when you try to sort it out, but once those expectations are accepted they can be a burden," Coop said. "It has to be an individual case, of course. But the bigger question is: are we asking kids to grow up too soon? You see kids coming out of these academies and they have tournament schedules as big as some of the TOUR players.

"Forget about how it affects their performance on the course. By the time they're 20, they've been everywhere and done everything. That can lead to burnout. So there are several levels to the question of is it a good thing.

"But for the right kid, who can handle it, maybe it is."

Coop is quick to point out that not every child who is an early bloomer is destined for psychological problems. But he wonders if we're pushing youngsters too hard sometimes and robbing them of a chance to be a kid.

"I am always reminded of ski jumps over in Scandinavia," Coop said. "You have to realize that we don't go to the top of that to start with. Try the little moguls first. Yet, that's almost what we're doing with some of these young golfers."

For players like McIlroy, Lee and Ishikawa, though, they've begun to scale those heights and they don't seem particularly concerned with any lost innocence.

"Obviously, when I'm on TOUR you're hanging around with people that are a lot older than you and you have to grow up faster," McIlroy said. "But when I get home from that maybe I take two or three weeks. I'll try and just chill with my friends and be a normal teenager again.

"It's like two completely different lives. You're out here and you're practicing and working hard and trying to win golf tournaments. And then when you get back home you see your friends struggling to try to get results in the exams at the university.

"So I'm very fortunate to be where I am at the moment and when I got home I see my friends studying and it puts everything in perspective."