Young guns rising on PGA Tour

CROMWELL — It happens all the time, in every professional sport. One generation passes the baton to the next, allowing it to finally have its time in the spotlight. Golf is no exception.

Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods — despite his injuries and slump — are the leaders of this generation, but their grips have become somewhat loose. The next wave of players, just as Mickelson and Woods once were, are standing in the wings, waiting to grab away that Sunday afternoon starring role as the PGA Tour comes to TPC River Highlands this week for the Travelers Championship.

The young guns include guys like Rickie Fowler and Anthony Kim, Brendan Steele and Jhonattan Vegas, Gary Woodland and Charl Schwartzel, Keegan Bradley and Dustin Johnson, Martin Laird and Rory McIlory.

And the list goes on and on and on.

Welcome to the world of the 20-somethings, golf’s new kids on the block. Players with big games and a maturity far beyond their years.

Already in 2011, six players in their 20′s, have won on the PGA Tour.

Schwartzel, just 26, won the Masters in April. Vegas, 26 won the Bob Hope Classic. Laird, 28, captured the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woodland, 27, won the Transitions Championship. Steele, 28, won the Valero Texas Open, and Bradley, 24, took the Byron Nelson Championship.

And that’s just the tip of the Tour iceberg.

Louis Oosthuizen, 28, won the 2010 British Open, Bill Haas, 29, is the defending champion of the Viking Classic. Johnson, 26, won four Tour events last season. And although he hasn’t won (yet), Fowler, at the ripe old age of 22, already has two second-place finishes on his brief resume.

“I think the future is in good hands in the game of golf,” McIlroy said at the Masters. “Rickie (Fowler) has just turned 22, I’m 21, Jason (Day, who won the 2010 Byron Nelson Championship) is 23. You know, very early stages of our careers, and to be challenging in maj or championships already, it’s a huge step in the right direction, and hopefully we can only get better.”

And they are. McIlroy, for example, is making a formidable bid to win the U.S. Open this weekend in Bethesda, Md.

GREATER UNDERSTANDING

“Everyone’s just getting better and better from a younger age,” Adam Scott said at the Masters. “There’s so much more being put into the sport of golf from all aspects that you need: physical, mental. Everyone is understanding how to prepare better and everyone is really hungry and passionate for it. I think we are going to keep seeing crops of young guys popping up. Every generation learns from the one before.”

And boy, are these guys learning. In January, Vegas — in just his fifth professional start and second as a Tour member — won the Bob Hope in a playoff against two other 20-somethings, Haas and Woodland. Two months later, Woodland erased that playoff loss with a one-shot win at the Transitions. Not bad for someone who had just started playing the game eight years ago.

The next week, Laird won the Arnold Palmer — beating both Phil and Tiger in the process — and then it was Schwartzel’s turn, birdieing the last four holes at Augusta to win the Green Jacket.

Steele then won the Texas Open in April, and in late May at the Byron Nelson, Bradley, the nephew of LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley, captured his first victory in a playoff, the fourth Tour rookie to win so far in 2011.

“I think it has a lot to do with the Nationwide Tour. That really trains us well,” Bradley said in a phone call last week. “We’re ready to come up on the PGA Tour and contend right away.

“If you notice, a lot of the guys that have won are Nationwide Tour graduates, and I think that plays a big part of it. The Nationwide Tour does everything the PGA Tour does but on a smaller scale. It’s the closest you can come to getting prepared for the PGA Tour. It teaches you how to travel, how to deal with a caddy, the pro-ams, all the corporate stuff. It prepares you as best it can. Nothing can prepare you for what the PGA Tour brings, but it’s the closest you can come.”

“Obviously there are a lot of great young players right now and we’re all playing really well,” Dustin Johnson said at the Byron Nelson in May.

In just his fourth full year on Tour, Johnson has four wins and 19 top-10 finishes, earning over $11 million. Right behind him are a bunch of other rising stars, led by the 22-year-old McIlory, who held a four-shot lead after three rounds of the Masters before a disastrous 80 on the final day cost him a Green Jacket. Still, last season, he won at Quail Hollow and finished T3 at both the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship, and no one was close to his first two sparkling rounds at the 2011 U.S. Open.

Fowler, also 22, has two top 10s and seven top-25 finishes already in 2011.

A YOUNGER BUZZ

Even PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said in a December 2010 teleconference, when asked about looking ahead to 2011, that the 20-somethings were looking strong.

“I’ve never in my tenure seen so much buzz and interest about rookies and young players creating exciting performances,” Finchem said.

Bradley, Vegas and 2007 Travelers Champion Hunter Mahan — who seems like a seasoned veteran at age 29 — are in the 2011 Travelers field, along with Kim, Laird and Steele.

“You kind of make yourself into a household name and you got to start somewhere.” Steele said at the Texas Open in April.

For the moment, the regular household names aren’t really even being talked about like these cardiac kids are. Woods, now 35, isn’t even playing as he battles a troubling left knee injury and an ongoing Achilles problem. He hasn’t won since 2009. Sergio Garcia, 31, hasn’t won since 2008 and has just one win since 2005. Davis Love III, 47, hasn’t won since 2008, and John Daly, 45, hasn’t won since 2004. Ernie Els, 41, has just three wins since 2005, and Vijay Singh, 48, also hasn’t won since 2009.

Only Mickelson, who just turned 41, has a solid 2011 resume, winning the Shell Houston Open in April.

“I think you go through cycles. I think you go through cycles of players that are really good players,” Jack Nicklaus said at the Memorial. “The McIlroys and the Fowlers and the (Jason) Days, these young kids, all of a sudden, they say, `Hey, I can do that.’ “