Huggan Takes A Closer Look at Guan Tianlang's Game
John Huggan got a good look at 14-year-old Guan Tianlang during last week's Australian Open and says the 2013 Masters qualifier may find Augusta National overwhelming.
Still, as his playing companion alluded to, Guan’s slightness of stature and relative youth mean he is presently nowhere near long enough off the tee to compete successfully at professional level. Downwind, his lack of oomph is less noticeable but into the wind it is readily apparent. On average, Guan’s tee-shots expired a good 60-70 yards before those of the powerful Leishman, who is, admittedly, not exactly short.
Unless Guan manages to add 50 yards to his drives and maybe 50 pounds to his relatively puny physique, it is hard to imagine him being able to reach many of Augusta’s par-4s in regulation, or, in turn, break 80 in either of the two rounds he is surely destined to play in the 2013 Masters.
Monday, December 10, 2012 at 01:01 PM
Reader Comments (30)
I guess I would ask what the point was? Any guesses?
I think we're lucky to have had this kind of on-site reporting about the lad and his game. And Huggan is a great observer, so he wrote a column expressing his view.
But the bigger picture issue that I'm sure Huggan would love to delve into had he had more space is this question of golf's youth obsession brought on by technology dumbing down the pro game. Riding the coattails of 15 year olds did not do anyone any good in tennis, and we can only hope that the same kind of things don't happen in golf that happened in tennis.
My read on the article is that Huggan is taking a not so subtle jab at the lords of Augusta and the end result of this Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship -- a champion (and toonamint invitee) who is wholly unprepared to participate, much less compete, in The Masters.
This isn't Guan's fault. He seems like a nice and well adjusted young kid. He showed up at the APAC and won it, secured The Masters invite....but clearly the test wasn't stringent enough to be rewarded with a Masters invite. This APAC looks like a nice little tournament but attaching a Masters invite to it is just completely laughable!
Now, the fact that he's glacially slow, that's new news! And the long putter surely won't help with his popularity amongst a certain segment of the golfing establishment. Kind of amazing that he'd actually show up at a tour event and dare to be the slowest player in the group....AND come within one bad time of a slow play penalty!
Later posts, however, do accurately call attention to the rather desperate and heavy-handed attempt by Augie Nat to force the issue in Asia. Does attaching a Masters bid to the winner of a tournament that, by nature and locale, attracts perhaps the most mediocre field in big-time amateur golf result in a certain stigma? In my eyes, absolutely. Promoting the game in Asia is fine but when you allow what is likely to be a certifiably unqualified kid/child into a major tournament, you run the risk of embarrassment -- both for the competitor and the event. My guess is an 87 and an 81.
Better question: why doesn't The Masters invite the winner of the NCAA championship, arguably the toughest, most fluke-free tournament in amateur golf?
If Huggan would rather delve into the technology debate and its dumbing down of pro golf he could have and chose not to. This hatchet piece on a 14 year old kid is pathetic. Not off-limits (Ben) just pathetic.
When is the last time someone wrote a hatchet piece on a qualifier into either the US or British Open that shot 80 in the main event?
Assuming this really is an attack on Augusta promotion of the event, fair enough but can you name two better amateur event outside the US?
The issue isn't that the Asian Am gets an invite, it's that the Masters (and golf in general) glorifies the Am, and thats just silly. Amateurs are either people who are training to be a pro, or who weren't good enough to make it. MLB doesn't invite the best college player to participate in the WS, golf shouldn't be either.
Contrast that with the US Am where 100% of the WAGR top-50 are exempt into stroke play and 300+ guys play 36 holes just to get into match play and then have a marathon from there. At Cherry Hills this year Matsuyama shot 73-72 to finish T82 and miss match play by 2 shots.
But back to Augusta and the article- it stirred interest and conversation, certainly a mark of a good piece. I wish the player well, and I congratulate him on his win- and I hope he keeps both under 90, and is not slow or bellying by then. If he is using the putting aid, I don't care if he breaks 100.
That isn't maligning the young man, it's measuring his game against the challenges all players will face--something writers do every year. Huggan was completely fair in his assessments. I'm pulling for young Guan, and will be very curious as to what time he plays the first two days, and with whom. I'll bet they give him a good pairing.
@Jim Sullivan: Masters coverage is not daycare. Guan is a curiosity with his age, size and being almost completely unknown. A frank, but respectful, evaluation of is game is going to transpire--it's what writers do.
Oliver Goss, an 18yo amateur from Western Australian who won his state OPEN title in October, couldn't beat Tianling at the event in question (Asian Amateur).
Goss hits it as far as Adam Scott (which I saw while following both of them at the Australian Masters).
Goss and Tianling both shot the same score in missing the cut by 4 shots at last weeks Australian Open at The Lakes.
If Goss was playing at Augusta next year, and not Tianling, everybody would be hailing a star of the future.
Tianling may be at a distance disadvantage at the moment, but the kid has obviously got LOADS of game, other wise he couldn't have shot 2 under in the 2nd round of the Aust. Open on a day when a stack of experienced pros would have killed to shoot a 70.
If you're not long, but you're a proven winner, you must have a hell of a short game. That same prowess would probably be handy around somewhere where there's an extra emphasis on your ability to get it up and down.
I do hope he speeds his play up beyond its current glacier-like level, but I also wish that for way too many to count.
Next April promises to be fascinating in so many ways, doesn't it?
Let's wish the kid well
While some of the points here about the tournament not being worthy of having its winner invited to The Masters do at least have validity, this isn't the "writer's" point. His "article" is clearly a rant by a d^*k measuring journalist who seems like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed (i.e., the one with a mirror on the wall).
After calling a kid not even out of puberty yet "puny" and a "pop gun shooter" who will maybe be given a chance to "play from the women's tees" at The Masters, he actually goes on to then smear the talented kid with the Chinese n-word: "inscrutable." (Sure, sure he distances himself from the offense by pretending he's aware of his own cliche, but this is no excuse for a professional saying something moronic like this in public.) Take the kid to task for his slow play, fine. But since when is golf a sport reserved for giants?
What would Huggan have called Hogan at age 14 -- "a duck hooking skinny little twirp with a temper?"
And the fact that he sees "all the Chinese kids on the range" as soulless "clones" who make the future of golf look "bleak" only caps off the rant with the kind of drunken insensitivity that an increasingly global sport doesn't deserve, let alone need, from its "journalists."
And so here is this 14 year old young man, whom has been referred to about 50-100 times in this thread alone aa ''the kid'', and probably by me as well. Very annoying. He really is not a kid.
And Rosaforte-man up- look in a mirror- you look like an alien.
The kid started badly, but shot 1-over on a tough course for his final 27 holes. Well done.
The word inscrutable had to be crowbarred into the story, despite Huggan suddenly having an aversion to cliches. Never seemed to bother him before.
Chinese golfers all look the same to him? Unlike the vast array of personalities and styles among US golfers? Europeans do seem a bit more varied both as golfers and humans, but give a bit of leeway to a country relatively new to the game and its teaching techniques.
If 80 is good enough for Jack and Arnie well past their prime, it's good enough for a kid well before his prime.
As others have pointed out, when was the last time the Public Links champion competed at the Masters. Michelle Wie had a crack at getting into the Masters via that route. She regularly shoots in the 80s off the ladies tees.
Leave the kid alone, Huggan. And leave China alone, too. They can actually defend themselves.