Tiger admits awe at China starlet Guan

For a moment or two, the hype appeared to be justified. After a week of marvelling at a 14-year-old qualifying for the Masters, Tianlang Guan took out his driver yesterday and swiped his opening shot in the majors straight down the middle.

To the manor born and all that for the schoolkid from China, except he marked his first Masters scorecard with an opening bogey five.

Still, even if Guan’s Masters adventure were to end tonight, with a missed cut and a long flight home to Guangdong on which to catch up on his homework, it has been remarkable golfing achievement just getting here. His presence at Augusta National as the youngest competitor in 77 years of Masters history comes by virtue of his win in the 2012 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, a tournament created by the Masters and the R&A to help develop the game in Asia by reaching out to that continent’s youth.

Guan, it seems, is both the advertisement and the target audience and his cool demeanour around Augusta National has impressed his seniors, which covers everyone else.

He has wasted no time picking the brains of Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods, who figured large in his first Masters memories, watching him win a green jacket when Guan was “probably three or four years old”.

“I played with him twice in the past couple years,” Guan said of Woods, “He gives me advice and I will say every time I play with him I feel a lot better and give myself some confidence.”

Woods, for his part, is happy to oblige. “This kid can’t play high school golf, he’s not in high school yet, so it’s hard to believe,” Woods said.

“When I was 14, I was trying to get on, trying to play more tournaments and I was running track and cross-country; you know, trying to get homework done. I couldn’t imagine not just playing in a Tour event, but the Masters.”

Woods played some practice holes with Guan earlier this week and was impressed by what he saw from a kid who was born a year after a young Tiger burst on the scene to win the Masters by 12 strokes in 1997.

“He’s so consistent. He was hitting a lot of hybrids into the holes, hitting them spot on, right on the numbers. He knew what he was doing, he knew the spots he had to land the ball, and to be able to pull it off. Good scouting, good prep, but also even better execution.

“For a 14-year-old, to be able to come out here, and handle himself the way he’s done is just unbelievable.”

Woods saw the funny side of their exchanges during their round together.

“He asked a lot of game questions, whether it’s what am I doing in my game or a strategy on the golf course, practice, playing. A lot of golf stuff. And I was asking him about school and stuff like that — ‘What classes are you taking?’

“He speaks great English. He’s picked it up really well. I’m kind of making a half-joke about it, but when I was here [he debuted aged 19 in 1995], I was getting ready for mid-terms and things like that. So what’s he doing? Books here or anything? ‘Just golf’.

“It was cool to see, just the attitude and just the open-mindedness. He’s just taking it all in. He’s going to learn and become so much better because of this experience and certainly going to grow as a player and as a person.”