Woods stands as inspiration for new generation of stars

Tiger Woods is not playing in the Masters Tournament, but his imprint is all over the field.

Thirty-four players 29 or younger qualified and 33 of them will tee it up this week at Augusta National Golf Club. The oldest of them was 10 when Woods won his first Mas­ters in 1997.

The best of them – No. 1 Jason Day, No. 2 Jordan Spieth, No. 3 Rory McIlroy and No. 5 Rickie Fowler – don’t hesitate to say that it was Woods and his reign of dominance that inspired their careers.

“There’s nobody who had more influence in my golf game than Tiger,” said Spieth, who tied Woods’ 1997 Masters scoring record last year at the same age, 21.

Fresh young talent has always been the lifeblood of the PGA Tour, but never has there been a wave of such quality volume to flood the conversation as there is right now. Eight of the world’s top 15 players are all 28 or younger.

“I think it’s in the best place that I’ve ever seen it,” former pro-turned-analyst David Feherty said on the youthful state of the game. “With Rickie and Jordan and Justin and Jason. The thing is, who is the sleeper in there? I think there’s about a hundred of them. One of them wins every week it seems. So the strength and depth is absolutely stunning in our sport at the moment. I think we have Tiger Woods to thank for a lot of that because these kids were 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 when he was going through that 10- to 12-year period that was sublime. He set the bar and made them believe this was possible.”

Before relative graybeard Bub­ba Watson, 37, bumped Fowler from the No. 4 spot in February, the average age of the top four players (26) was the youngest since the Official World Golf Rankings launched in 1986.

The tentatively dubbed “Fab Four” includes Spieth (22), McIlroy (26), Fowler (27) and Day (28). Dating back to the summer of 2014, this group has accounted for five of the past six majors plus the Players Championship.

Yet these stars are far from alone in the new wave. Twenty-two of the world’s top 50 are 20-somethings.

This generation of rising stars hail from every golf-playing continent:

• North Amer­icans including Patrick Reed, Justin Thomas, Daniel Ber­ger, Brooks Koepka, Smy­lie Kaufman and Adam Had­win

• Europeans Matthew Fitz­patrick, Paul Dunne, Vic­tor Dubuisson, Tommy Fleet­­wood and Thomas Pie­ters

• Africans Branden Grace and Brandon Stone

• Aus­tra­lians Cameron Smith and Ryan Ruffels

• Asians Hi­deki Matsu­yama, Ben An, Anirban Lahiri and Kira­dech Aphibarnrat

• South America’s Emili­ano Grillo

“They are just coming out and nobody is afraid,” Spieth said of his already accomplished peers.

When Woods became the youngest player to win the Masters at 21 in his first major as a professional in 1997, it became popular to search for the “next Tiger.” The original crowd anticipated to be Woods’ longtime rivals were called the “Young Guns.” Those so-called can’t-miss kids included Sergio Gar­cia, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Charles Howell, Luke Don­ald, Matt Kuchar, Paul Ca­sey, David Gossett, Bryce Mol­der and teenage phenom Ty Tryon.

Though that group includes two major winners, two players who briefly reached No. 1 in the world and some sustained stars, it never quite measured up in the shadow of Woods.

This new crowd of Woods-inspired stars arrived on tour ready to compete immediately. Their new muse is Spieth – who turned in one of the greatest seasons in golf history last year.

“I think that given junior golf and amateur golf has become so well organized and courses have gotten more challenging – they have become very similar to tour events,” Spieth said. “Players just seem to be more equipped when they first get out. They see the course, they make a couple birdies early and they are ready to go.

“I think that’s the trend that’s coming. It’s hard for me to tell, but that’s what’s happened with me. I felt very well prepared for the PGA Tour after getting some starts as an amateur and then comparing them to those events I was playing. It made it an easier transition.”

That was illustrated at the British Open last year, when a handful of young amateurs crowded the weekend leader­board, including 22-year-old Dunne in the final pairing.

The start of the 2015-16 PGA Tour season had three winners who were former junior golf rivals of Spieth. Two of them – Grillo and Thomas – were Spieth’s high school “Class of 2011” peers that also includes Berger, Patrick Rod­gers and former Georgia Tech star Ollie Schnieder­jens.

“It’s great to see some other guys your age that I’ve played before with, see them winning the Masters, winning the U.S. Open,” said Grillo, 23, who won his first tournament as a PGA Tour card holder. “It makes you believe you can do it. I mean, basically the only player that I look up to is Jordan. I played a lot with him. He’s my age – a bit younger than me. Makes you think, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’”

Thomas, who counts Spieth among his best friends, broke through two weeks after Grillo in Malay­sia.

“We have all played so many times against each other since junior golf and amateur and college golf,” said Thomas, 22. “And, yeah, seeing them win was a little bit motivating. … I expected to win a lot sooner than this, honestly.”

Young stars having success is nothing new, as Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nick­laus, Seve Ballesteros and many other greats proved. But the volume of young talent capable of winning immediately at the highest level seems to have increased dramatically.

“I think it’s a lot different,” said Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III, who got the first of his 21 career victories at Harbour Town in 1987 the week after turning 23. “You see guys like Smylie Kauf­man or Justin Thomas or Jor­dan Spieth, they come out of college or a little bit of college and they are professionals. They are experienced.

“I know when I was coming out, I was still learning the game, learning my way around, finding myself. These guys are very mature, very polished. They played a bunch of AJGA events all the way up to U.S. Amateurs and Walker Cups and they are very, very prepared. They are more ready I think than guys back when I was coming out.”

Even the emerging young stars who haven’t made it to the Masters are confident they’ll be here sooner rather than later.

“For me it’s incredibly motivating,” said Rodgers, who broke Woods’ career scoring average at Stanford and tied his mark of 11 collegiate wins. “Seeing your friends have success or if you’re playing in the same events, kick your butt, it’s incredibly motivating. I’ve said it a million times: I feel like I can compete with those guys.”

Since Rodgers filled the role of “the next Tiger” at Stan­ford, he echoes the refrain that Woods was the inspiration for golf’s latest greatest generation.

“He was definitely my inspiration when I was a kid to play golf,” Rodgers said. “He made golf cool for me. He made me want to be a golfer. He’s driven my whole life to be better at golf, so I definitely owe my career to Tiger Woods for sure.”