Tiger Woods may not be playing at this week's Northern Trust Open at the fabled Riviera Country Club, but a player whom many regard as a potential challenger to Woods will be.
Who is this mystery player? None other than 17-year old Japanese phenom Ryo Ishikawa, who will be playing this week on a sponsor's exemption.
Back in 2007, Ishikawa became the youngest player to win a Japanese Tour event at the age of 15, and added two victories to his resume last season.
Ishikawa has also been invited to play at the Masters in April, which will give us a chance to see how he handles the intense spotlight of a major.
Do I hope Ishikawa can eventually challenge Tiger's supremacy? Sure.
Do I think he will? No.
Why? Because for every Tiger Woods, there are a boatload of phenoms that fail to live up to expectations. Look at Phil Mickelson. In 1991, Lefty became only the fourth amateur to win a PGA Tour event, and while he has certainly done well for himself, his career has not lived up to the lofty expectations he brought with him when he turned pro.
Ditto for Sergio Garcia. After his spirited run at the 1999 PGA Championship, when he was just 19 years old, most expected that El Nino would have at least one major by now.
Phil and Sergio are some of the happier examples of phenoms that failed to live up to the hype. Ty Tryon, who became the youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event in 2001, is perilously close to having to find a new day job.
What is it that seperates Tiger from these also-rans? Mental toughness. Tiger has mental toughness unlike anyone we've ever seen. His birdie putt on the 18th to force a playoff at Torrey Pines in last year's U.S. Open is evidence of that.
The thing about golf that makes it different from other sports is that simply having the skills to play the game well isn't enough. You have to know how to win.
When it gets down to crunch time in a golf tournament, things change. Why does it happen so often in a major that the leader coughs up the lead to a guy who teed off in the morning, rather than the leader hitting great shots to hold on to his lead? Anyone who has seen the excellent documentary The Back Nine at Cherry Hills knows what I'm talking about. Arnold Palmer came back from seven strokes back on Sunday to win that 1960 U.S. Open, and while we can never know for certain whether Arnie would have still shot 65 if he had been in the lead to start the day, it certainly made it easier on him that he had nothing to lose that day.
Before he even turned pro, Tiger knew how to win. He won three U.S. Junior Amateur and three U.S. Amateur titles apiece, an amateur record that is about as impressive as it gets.
Perhaps Ishikawa has similar mental abilities to Woods, but until I see them, I am hesitant to anoint him as a successor to Tiger.
