COMMENTARY
Will the Junior World remain kids’ stuff to our golfers?
By Percy D. Della
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:39:00 07/23/2008
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—One of our prized kids in golf has done it again.
But I am afraid our ensuing conversation won’t be pretty.
Not to rain on her parade, we’d like to doff our hat to 14-year-old Dottie Ardina who won a third Junior World golf title in San Diego last week.
Dottie continues our winning tradition at the world boys and girls championships.
Before her, Ramon Brobio bagged four championship trophies in the boys’ brackets.
Carito Villaroman snatched two in the 15-17 boys’ division in record fashion.
Manila-born Jennifer Rosales and Daly City-bred Dorothy Delasin, when they were teenyboppers, took the girls’ trophy in the same bracket.
Just as the swallows return every year, our prodigies have been fixtures at the Junior World in San Diego since 1975.
In Los Angeles of the late ’70s and early ’80s, we used to drive our sportswriter friends from Manila down San Diego way and then fetch them back after their jungolf coverage.
Year in and year out our kids have bored down on several first-place finishes. They have won many and lost as much.
Yet something is still amiss.
Please note that Jennifer and Dorothy’s sporadic exploits in the Ladies Professional Golf Association are dutifully noted here.
But our winning culture—especially in the boys’ brackets fostered at the Junior World—has not been translated into success on the rich circuits, notably the US PGA Tour.
True, some of our jungolf standouts have established a beachhead on the Asian Tour.
But why oh why are they not training their sights, or working harder to earn playing cards on the lucrative tours, like the PGA Tour where Junior World alumni have made names for themselves and their respective flags.
The list of Junior World alums reads like the Who’s Who of the US pro golf scene—Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Corey Pavin, Nick Price, Craig Stadler, David Toms, Trevor Immelman, Pat Perez, Adam Scott, Anthony Kim, Notah Begay III, Lorena Ochoa, Amy Alcott, Brandi Burton and, of course, Eldrick Woods—Tiger for you, us and the rest of the mesmerized golf universe.
For the record, our phenom Villaroman won the 15-17 boys division two years running—in 1986 and 1987, ahead of the phenom of phenoms, Tiger, who took the title of world’s best junior golfer in 1991.
When you look at where Tiger and company have ended up, and what they have achieved after the Junior World, you can’t help but throw in thorns of disillusionment into our typically rosy showing at the yearly global kids’ tournament in San Diego.
Which leads to this burning question. Why do former jungolf winners from other climes go on to excel in the PGA while our prodigies, the boys in particular, don’t?
We are not asking for accountability from our golf leaders and sports godfathers here.
We are begging that they do something to lead our pros on the right track, bankrolling them through qualifying school and beyond if feasible.
Opportunity is lost when our pro golfers remain a work in progress for the profitable pro golf tournaments most of the time.
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