Twenty Questions

By Jaime Diaz
Photos By Charles Laberge August 25, 2006

While Tiger Woods was putting to the picture, one of the clearest snapshots to emerge from the PGA Championship captured the wide chasm between the best young international professionals and their American counterparts.

Lately it's been easy to generally malign golf's twentysomethings for their lack of victories, putting touch and shotmaking skills, and for getting lapped by the now 30-year-old Tiger Woods, rather than drafting off his rear bumper. But a closer look reveals that the biggest void in the game's youth movement is located in the United States.

At Medinah, three youthful internationals—Luke Donald, 28, of England, and Adam Scott of Australia and Sergio Garcia of Spain, both 26—took positive career steps in tying for third. Donald survived a valuable rite of passage in his final-round Sunday pairing with Woods, while Scott achieved his highest finish ever in a major. Garcia showed resiliency in bouncing back from his final-round collapse at last month's British Open, maturity in overcoming a triple bogey on his second hole of round two and welcome progress on the greens, although he remained very much El Niño when it came to the lack of grace he showed Woods. "Everything went his way, too," said Garcia after closing with a 70 to finish six back. "The bad shots he hit all week, he got away with them. You know, that's about it."

The Americans giving the best account of themselves at the PGA were two resurgent babes, 23-year-old Ryan Moore, who tied for ninth with elder twentysomething Aussie Geoff Ogilvy, and 24-year-old Sean O'Hair, who tied for 12th.

Statistically, young America actually overachieved in the year's last major. But even after the championship, there was not one American player in his 20s among the top 50 in the World Ranking. The highest-ranked are Lucas Glover (52nd) and O'Hair (54th), followed by Moore (79th), J.B. Holmes (80th), Charles Howell III (90th), Ben Curtis (118th), Ryan Palmer (126th) and Jonathan Byrd (140th). All but Howell made the cut at Medinah.

Meanwhile, seven international players in their 20s reside near the top of the ranking: Scott (sixth), Ogilvy (seventh), Garcia (ninth), Donald (10th), Trevor Immelman of South Africa (14th), Carl Pettersson of Sweden (25th) and Paul Casey of England (32nd). At the very least, it doesn't bode well for future Ryder and Presidents Cups. "They've pretty much kicked our butt," admitted Byrd, 28, who along with Curtis is the only American under 30 with more than one official victory.

In recent years the U.S. has lost its former world dominance in tennis, baseball and even basketball, so perhaps it is inevitable that golf will follow suit. But most insiders say American complacency is not the problem. "This whole group of young players—Americans and internationals—works harder than guys from the past did," said veteran caddie Tony Navarro, who caddied for Howell before his current partnership with Scott. Immelman added, "Some of the greatest sportsmen in the history of the world are American. Especially Tiger, and he sets the work ethic the young U.S. guys follow. But it might be that the guys from foreign countries have some advantages." At Medinah, the following five were most often mentioned:

1) Earlier pro start—More international players tend to skip college, most notably Ogilvy, Garcia, Immelman, Justin Rose of England (ranked 120th) and Australian Aaron Baddeley (94th). Scott attended UNLV for 1½ years, but said of the Australian system, "Our golf institutes teach more about the game than American colleges do." Said Immelman. "It's a massive jump from amateur to pro anyway, and we tend to get the hard part out of the way sooner. In our teens, we get used to traveling far from our families and getting on with it, so maybe that makes us tougher."