What Augusta and Chinese teen might mean for golf

By John Strege
GolfDigest.com | GolfDigest.com

The walls are crumbling around what was once America's most exclusive men's club, what with women and children now given the run of the place. More or less.

The Augusta National Golf Club will invite a 14-year-old boy to play in the Masters next spring, this in the wake of having conferred membership on Condoleezza Rice, its first female member. What next, public play days?

That said, the greater story here is not that China's Guan Tianlang, by virtue of his victory in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship on Sunday, will become the youngest ever to play in the Masters. Instead, it's the latest example of what might happen should China embrace golf other than superficially.

Guan, who turned 14 less than two weeks ago, won by a stroke a tournament created by the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation in conjunction with Augusta National and the Royal and Ancient for the purpose of growing the game in the region. As an incentive, the trophy for winning is a Masters invitation.

Thus Guan will become the second Chinese 14-year-old to play in a major championship in a 10-month period. In June, Andy Zhang played in the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club. What each also has in common is that they train, at least part of the year, in Florida.

Golf remains largely an elitist sport in China, though it is growing; the number of courses there has increased from 170 to nearly 600 in the last eight years, according to a story by China Daily. We asked Dan Washburn, an expert on golf in China and a contributor to Golf Digest and Golf World for his thoughts on what impact Guan might have on Chinese golf. His email response:

"Guan's historic achievement certainly can't hurt golf's prospects for growth in China, but the obstacles the sport faces in the country are real. It will be interesting to see how much coverage Guan's Masters adventure attracts in China beyond the niche golf publications. Even Feng Shanshan, winner of China's first major, struggles for recognition in her home country.

"Golf is going to grow in China -- there is no doubt about that. Trying to predict how fast or to what heights, however, is a fool's errand. But if this drumbeat continues -- Feng, Zhang, and now Guan -- Chinese golf is soon going to be hard for the world to ignore, no matter how far from the mainstream the sport continues to be in China."

If China does begin to tap its golf potential, well, consider what happened to women's golf when Korean parents began sending their daughters en masse to train in the U.S. China might not similarly dominate a men's game that has substantially greater depth and international influence, but it might upend the balance of power and put Asia on equal footing with the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Guan, meanwhile, has been playing golf in the U.S. at least since 2005, when he finished fourth in the six-and-under division of the Callaway Junior World Championship in San Diego. He won the 11-and-12 division of the tournament by 11 strokes in 2011 and tied for 22nd in the 15-to-17 division in July.

His introduction to international golf at the elite level came last April, when he was 13 and became the youngest player in European Tour history, at the China Open (he missed the cut). The story received considerable attention in precincts other than the U.S., to the point that the British bookmaker Ladbrokes offered 1,000-to-1 odds that by his 18th birthday he'd be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Don't bet on it. Beyond that, don't bet against him. Among those Guan defeated on Sunday was Australian Oliver Goss, a quarter-finalist in the U.S. Amateur and the winner recently of the Australasia Tour's Western Australian Open.

Guan, of course, won't win the Masters in April, perhaps sparing, to which freelance golf writer Dave Andrews jokingly alluded on Twitter, Augusta National from having to serve Happy Meals at the Champions Dinner in 2014.

But he will make history and headlines, helping fulfill the Asia-Pacific Amateur's mandate, to grow the game, possibly doing so in ways that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.

Pingpong passion stokes U.S. Ryder Cup team's competitive fires

Phil Mickelson has had a tough time measuring up to Matt Kuchar in pingpong. (Getty Images)

 

By Yahoo Sport

MEDINAH, Ill. – Perhaps the fiercest competition during this weekend's Ryder Cup will not take place on the golf course, but rather in the United States' team room.

That's where three pingpong tables have been set up in what's become a Ryder Cup tradition amongst U.S. players. The original intent was to build camaraderie, and to that end it worked – if you are to believe Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods ironed out some of their differences over a game of table tennis.

Lately, though, the games have taken on a more serious tone, with Mickelson and Matt Kuchar bringing their own paddles packed away in special cases.

"The Ryder Cup is all about pingpong, everybody," Bubba Watson declared Thursday. "When you bring your own paddles in cases, a briefcase with a paddle in it, then obviously it's about pingpong. … It's nuts."

While tongue in cheek, there is some truth to Watson's claim that the Ryder Cup is all about pingpong. When asked about how his relationship with Woods has evolved over the course of the six Ryder Cup teams they've been on together, Mickelson announced to a packed press room that while they haven't had a lot of success on the course, "as partners on the pingpong table, he and I are delivering."

"We are serving it up, and there are not many guys that can match us on the pong table."

That may be true in doubles; singles, however, is another story.

Kuchar is the unquestioned king of the table-top court. He started playing when he was young with his father. In what became a nightly routine, they'd head out to the garage, unfold the table and play.

In golf terms, Kuchar rates himself a "1 or 2" handicap in pingpong.

"It's been fun bonding, because there is that ability to kind of go out and be boys and kind of feel like you're in the locker room while you're competing against each other," Kuchar said of the pingpong competitions inside the American's team room.

Fun for most, but maybe not so much for Mickelson. According to Watson, this week Kuchar and Mickelson played five points against one another, with Kuchar winning all five.

"So he quit," Watson explained. "Phil Mickelson pouts ever time we make him play Matt Kuchar. Love you, Phil."

Watson also says that he and Jason Dufner "dominated" Mickelson and Jeff Sluman in doubles.

"Mickelson is still mad about it," Watson said. "He hates anytime I beat him because I'm just this goofy left-handed kid named Bubba.

"So anytime I can beat Phil Mickelson, I like to rub it in his face. So on that one, I do disrespect my own teammates when it comes to pingpong."