“Definitely that’s just a number. He’s not that age, you know what I mean? He was 14, but he didn't act for sure like a 14-year-old. So there are guys they actually are at that age, but they’re forward.”
These words of wisdom about teen sensation Guan Tianlang making the field, and the cut, at the Masters earlier this year come not from one of the game’s elderly sages but a fellow phenom, the now 20-year- old Matteo Manassero.
Manassero played the Masters in 2009 at the age of 16, then a record, and was a two time European Tour winner before his 20th birthday (he has since added a third title to his resume).
But Manassero and Guan are just two of a host of seemingly younger and younger players, both men and women (or should that be boys and girls?) playing, and succeeding, at the highest levels.
19-year-old Jordan Spieth won the PGA TOUR’s John Deere Classic the week before this year’s Open Championship, becoming the youngest PGA TOUR winner in 82 years.
Our own Jason Day set the Web.com Tour record as youngest ever winner when he claimed the 2007 Legend Financial Group Classic at just 19.
Lexi Thompson, who qualified for the US Women’s Open at 12 and turned professional at 15, won her first LPGA title at the age of 16 setting a then record as the youngest player ever to win on that tour.
Less than a year passed, however, before that milestone was surpassed by 15-year-old New Zealand sensation, Lydia Ko.
Ko’s victory in the 2012 Canadian Open was made more remarkable by the fact that 19 of the top 20 players in the world were in the field.
The now world number one Inbee Park was runner-up that week, three strokes behind Ko.
Of course the Canadian victory came just seven months after she set the all time record, for men or women, as the youngest player in history to win a professional tournament.
Ko was just 14 when she won the 2012 NSW Women’s Open, an event she finished second in the previous year at the age of 13.
Ko’s victory in Sydney broke the record of another teen star, Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa.
Ishikawa previously held the record for youngest player to win a professional event when he took out the Munsingwear Cup on the Japan Golf Tour in 2007 at the age of 15 years, eight months.
Other teen standouts in recent years have included China’s Andy Zhang, who got into the 2012 US Open field as first alternate.
The then 14-year-old is the youngest ever to tee up in a US Open.
He missed the cut at Olympic but not so 17-year-old Beau Hossler who made plenty of headlines, especially when he briefly took the outright lead during the third round.
Here in Australia many watched incredulous last year as 18-year-old Oliver Goss defeated 21-year-old fellow amateur Brady Watt in a five hole playoff for the John Hughes Geely/Nexus Risk Services West Australian Open.
Do all these performances suggest that players these days might just be ready to tackle the upper echelons of the game at an earlier age?
The answer to that, according to many, might just be yes.
“If you take a kid at 15 years old,” six time major winner Nick Faldo said recently, “there’s almost a blueprint on how to play this game.
“What I mean by that is they have this knowledge, it’s not a guess anymore. In our era we were still guessing
“Don’t lift weights, because you didn't know what to do, you get too big, too tight.
"Well, now the physiotherapists on Tour are doctors.
“It’s fascinating when you come and say, well, this muscle is not working.
"They tell you why it’s not firing. They give you the rehab, they give you the exercises.
“Physically, we know how to train. We know. It’s not a guess. Technically, the coaching has really improved.
“And obviously on the mental side, it’s very important to have a sports psychologist, and a sports psychologist understands all your neurons, whatever you want to know.
“So that’s what I’m saying, these days the young players, they know it all.”
There is no doubt improvements in sport science, coaching methods and understanding how the human body and mind work have all contributed to
younger athletes performing well in adult sports.
But that doesn't mean every child with a bit of talent is capable of making it in the big leagues.
The PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour in the US both have minimum age requirements for membership (The PGA Tour of Australasia does not.)
Players can petition to be allowed to join earlier but need to make a strong case to be accepted.
“Your career isn't going to end at 18,” LPGA Tour Commissioner Mike Whan said on the subject in 2011.
“It is a journey, not a sprint and sometimes people recognise that the hard way.
“Give me the list of players you think had their greatest years between the ages of 15 and 18.
“I’m sure when Tiger Woods was 15 people were saying he was ready.
And maybe he was. But no one is going to look back at those years and say his best was when he was 15.”
For every Lydia Ko or Guan Tianlang there are dozens, if not hundreds, of youngsters who fail to make the grade.
Those good enough to get there, however, have never had a better chance at success.
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