Agent: College golf 'a negative'

Chubby Chandler, Europe's highest-profile agent, represents, among others, Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, and 20-year-old wunderkind Rory McIlroy, the latter of whom he employs to make his case that college golf impedes a golfer's success.

"There's no doubt the U.S. college system is holding young players back," Chandler tells the New York Times. "Twenty years ago the system was a massive positive, but now it's a negative. Kids now go to college over here and learn to go out drinking and girls and whatever and it's a nice experience. But from a golf standpoint, your golf stands still.

"And I think it's not a coincidence that people like Tiger finished early, Anthony Kim finished early and Sean O'Hair didn't go. You think about Rory; he's got maybe two or three years before he would have left college. He could be No. 1 in the world by then."

Obviously time spent in class and studying outside of class is time away from the golf course or driving range, but Chandler overlooks the benefits (unless "drinking and girls and whatever" qualify as such) for those whose professional potential isn't as clear cut as it was for Woods and Kim, among them a quality education on which to fall back in the event golf does not work out.

Here is a two-word rebuttal to Chandler's assertion: Ty Tryon.

-- John Strege