SINGAPORE: Asian golf fans are in for a treat next Thursday when China's Guan Tianlang, 14, becomes the youngest player ever to tee off at the Masters. After that, highlights could be in short supply.
With only one Asian player qualified through his ranking, the Guangzhou adolescent with the mean belly putter will be the centre of attention on the first day, when he will smash the 2010 record of Italy's Matteo Manassero.
It will provide a welcome, if fleeting, diversion for those following the Asian players, with few other successes in prospect and a very real danger that no one from the region will make the cut.
Japan's Hiroyuki Fujita, 43, is the only Asian to earn his place at August National by virtue of a top-50 ranking, with his fellow countryman Ryo Ishikawa and Thailand's Thaworn Wiratchant both given special invites.
South Korea's major-winner Y.E. Yang gets a berth thanks to his historic victory at the 2009 PGA Championship, a result which remains unparalleled in Asian golf.
The contingent of five Asian players, one fewer than last year, at the prestigious tournament does not speak well of golf's most dynamic region after a decade-long explosion of courses and events.
With chronic battles between the continent's two competing tours, and the enduring supremacy of big events imported from outside the region, Asia's players have struggled to live up to heady expectations on the world stage.
However, Guan will drag the focus firmly onto hopes for the future of Asian golf, and away from its current travails, when he tees off aged 14 years, five months and 17 days.
The schoolboy, who juggles golf practice with his homework and often trains in the United States, has big ambitions. Last month, he told AFP he dreams of becoming the first player to win all four majors in the same year.
"I have (had) a dream since I was a little boy," Guan said in an exclusive interview.
"I wish, one day, I can win all four majors in one year."
With his Masters appearance, Guan will outdo Manassero's feat in playing the 2010 Masters at the age of 16. He is already the youngest ever European Tour player after appearing at the Volvo China Open aged 13 a year ago.
Similar hubbub greeted Florida-based Chinese teen Andy Zhang at last year's US Open, when he became the tournament's youngest player, also aged 14, after the withdrawal of England's Paul Casey through injury.
But despite his undoubted promise Guan, who is no long hitter, will find it tough over the uncompromising, 7,435-yard Augusta lay-out, bathed in the full glare of the world's attention.
Thaworn, the top earner on last year's Asian Tour, will also tread the fabled fairways for the first time at the age of 46, while Fujita missed the cut on his only previous appearance, in 2011.
Ishikawa, 21, has long been touted as a future giant of Asian golf but the world number 114 has only reached the Masters weekend once in four attempts, and has just one top-40 finish in nine PGA Tour events this year.
That leaves Yang, 41, as Asia's likely standard-bearer as he looks to reach weekend play for the fourth time in a row, a run which includes a tied-eighth finish in 2010.
For Guan, Augusta will be a first taste of stardom. But his real test will come in the years ahead, and whether he can match Manassero's dazzling progress after his Masters debut in 2010.
After making the cut at Augusta, Manassero became the European Tour's youngest ever winner at the 2010 Castello Masters, and he later won in Malaysia and Singapore to stand as the only teenager to win three times on the circuit. - AFP
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