As we take a look at some of the most talented prodigies in the history of golf, where better to start than Tiger Woods: Six junior world championships to his name, the only player to win three US junior championships in a row, and a three-peat winner of the US amateur from 1994 to 1996. Woods turned pro in August 1996. Within a year, he’d scooped three PGA Tour events, become the youngest winner of The Masters at 21, and become the fastest player to reach No. 1 after turning professional, just 290 days into his pro career.
Following a series of wins in Canadian amateur events, Brooke Henderson became the youngest-ever winner of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (at the Sahalee Country Club, pictured) when she won her first major aged 18 in 2016. Henderson has since racked up eight wins on the LPGA Tour, her most recent coming at the LA Open in April 2021.
After becoming the youngest player to win the British Amateur Championship in 2009 (at Formby Golf Club, pictured) and make the cut at The Masters as a 16-year-old the following year, Italy’s Matteo Manassero burst onto the pro scene, becoming the first teenager to win three times on the European Tour. Victories at the Castello Masters, Malaysian Open, and the BMW PGA Championship suggested the arrival of a new superstar, but Manassero has since endured a difficult spell.
He hasn’t won on the European Tour since 2013, though 7th and 8th Tour finishes already in 2022 have made for a solid start to the year for the Italian.The youngest-ever known winner of a professional golf tour event, 14-year-old Atthaya Thitikul made headlines around the world when she triumphed at the Ladies European Thailand Championship in 2017.
A string of amateur titles followed before Thitikul turned pro in 2020, and the Thai prodigy’s meteoric rise continued with three more Ladies European Tour wins by September 2021. She won her first LPGA Tour event in March 2022 at the JTBC Classic in Southern California (pictured), and in May, rose to No. 4 in the world rankings.Continuing Thailand’s recent trend of golf prodigies, Ratchanon “TK” Chantananuwat narrowly missed out on besting compatriot Thitikul’s record when he became the youngest male player to win on a major Tour aged 15 years and 37 days.
Victory at the Trust Golf Asian Mixed Cup in April 2022 (pictured) set a new peak in the schoolboy’s amateur career, having already become the youngest player to make the cut in the history of the All Thailand Golf Tour in 2020, aged 13 years and four months.
Having already won on the ALPG Tour earlier that year, New Zealand’s Lydia Ko became the youngest golfer to win on the LPGA Tour when — at 15 years old — she triumphed at the CN Canadian Women’s Open in August 2012 (pictured). After turning pro in October 2013, Ko has gone from strength to strength with an already-glittering trophy cabinet.
At 17 years old, she was the youngest golfer to reach the No. 1 ranking in 2015, and today boasts 17 victories on the LPGA Tour.Arguably the greatest golfer never to go pro, Bobby Jones is one of the sport’s most influential figures. A prodigious young talent with a string of wins by the age of 14, it took longer than expected for Jones to win his first major, triumphing at the US Open in 1923, aged 21.
He soon added three more and three British Open titles before retiring at just 28. He proceeded to found and help design the course at Augusta National Golf Club, where The Masters — then known as the Augusta National Invitational — was first hosted in 1934.
One of the most famed golf prodigies in recent history, a 10-year-old Michelle Wie became the youngest player to qualify for a USGA amateur Championship in 2000. Aged 14 in 2004, she bested many of the world’s top men’s players’ and major winners at the Sony Open (pictured) despite narrowly missing the cut. With a professional career marred by injury, victory at the US Women’s Open in 2014 has proven to be the career peak for Wie, who told CNN she had been considering retirement before the birth of her daughter in 2020.
His father was one of the most decorated teenage golfers to play the game. Now, Charlie Woods is adding to his own junior trophy cabinet.The 14-year-old was part of the Benjamin School boys team that clinched the Florida High School Athletic Association Class A state championship on Wednesday, helping secure a fourth title for the Palm Beach school.
Freshman Woods carded rounds of 78 and 76 at Mission Inn Resort and Club in Howey-In-The-Hills, Florida, the fourth best score of his five-strong team, all while his father Tiger, clad in black, watched on.He finished tied-26th in the individual rankings as the Benjamin School Buccaneers edged a one-shot victory.Woods on caddie duty for his son (center) at the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championships at Mission Inn Resort in Orlando, Florida in September.
The 15-time major winner never lifted a state championship, though there is a caveat to his son’s bragging rights – his father never actually had the opportunity to win one. The California Interscholastic Federation did not stage the competition during Woods’ spell at Western High School in Anaheim, California.Tiger Woods and US sporting royalty set to tee off high-tech indoor golf league Not that it put much of a dent in his résumé.
As a 15-year-old student at the school in 1991, Woods became the then-youngest US Junior Amateur champion, and would go on to three-peat the event.Within a year of turning professional in August 1996, he had won three PGA Tour events, become the youngest winner of The Masters at 21 and the fastest player to reach No. 1 in the world after turning pro.Today, Woods sits at World No. 1307, a third-round withdrawal from The Masters in April being his last competitive appearance, and the most recent of the sporadic few he has made since suffering severe leg injuries in a serious car crash in 2021.