THIS YEAR AT AUGUSTA was a wonderful experience, but the thing that stood out to me as the one thing I will always remember was walking out onto the range on Tuesday, where I was to meet Sean O’Hair, and seeing that there were only three players on the range and the oldest was a mere 19 years.
Sean Foley is the coach of Stephen Ames, Sean O'Hair, Hunter Mahan and others. He is also the 2008 Ontario PGA Teacher of the Year.
There was Rory McIlroy who is only 19, Danny Lee who was 18 and Ryo Ishikawa the 17 year lad from Japan.
Physically they look like they should be at a junior golf tournament but here they were at Augusta National playing in the Masters. They are phenomenal players – mature well beyond their chronological age. They all hit it miles, are very sharp iron players, and most likely the reason we will hear about them for some time to come is they have beautiful and creative short games. I just found it amazing in a world of mediocrity that these three had developed a mutual dream, formed at a very young age, to play in the Masters and never looked back.
As human beings we are so very capable and inherently amazing but I am not sure that we are taught to believe that. So for all of the players reading this, set the bar extremely high for yourself and then out-work everyone else and you too will accomplish things not perceived possible.
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