"Thank goodness," a fellow said in an e-mail after Rory McIlroy won the Quail Hollow Championship yesterday in Charlotte.
McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, turns 21 tomorrow. He made the cut last Friday right on the number at one-over-par 145 and shot 66-62 on the weekend to win by four shots over Masters champion Phil Mickelson. He's the youngest player to win on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods won the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational.
What did the fellow mean by saying, "Thank goodness?" One guess is that he's glad that the focus should rightly turn to the gifted young player who won the European Tour's Dubai Desert Classic in 2009 and who has been touted as one of the potentially great young players. He's justifying the notion.
Woods suddenly seems old.
Woods, 34, flamed out in Charlotte. He shot 74-79 to miss the cut by eight shots. He appeared to lose interest during the back nine when it was clear he was going to be heading home early for the just the sixth time in his career. This wasn't the Woods who had won 71 PGA Tour events, including 14 major tournaments.
The focus, then, shifts from Woods, at least for now. It's impossible to know how he will do at the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., this week. He's off his feed, and he looks disturbed, as if the bizarre life he's led off the course, and the recriminations he's been facing, are affecting his game on the course. Why wouldn't they? He's human.
It's on to McIlroy, then, but not only to him. The 18-year-old Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa shot 58 - yes, 58 - yesterday, to win the Crowns tournament in Togo, Japan. It was his seventh win on the Japanese tour. His first came when he was a 15-year-old amateur.
"I was in a calm mental state for all 58 strokes," Ishikawa said.
McIlroy said he was "in the zone" during his final-round 62, a course record at Quail Hollow club, when he went five-under par the last five holes.
Teenagers. Calm. In the zone. Yes sir, Woods does suddenly seem old.
Then there's Rickie Fowler, from Anaheim. Fowler dressed head to toe in orange at Quail Hollow and put up plenty of red on the scoreboard. He shot 67 to finish sixth, eight shots behind McIlroy.
Fowler is all of 21, and he came very close to winning his first PGA Tour event last fall. He lost a playoff for the Frys.com Open in Scottsdale, Ariz.
These are kids. They make Ai Miyazato, the winner of the Tres Maria Championship in Morelia, Mexico, on the LPGA Tour yesterday, seem a veteran. She's 24 and has won three times in five LPGA events this year. Stacy Lewis, also 24, and Golf Digest's 2007 amateur of the year, finished a shot behind.
Michelle Wie, by the way, was another shot back. Wie has been around forever, but she's just 20. She won her first LPGA Tour event in the final tournament of the 2009 season.
Finally, consider the Italian youngster Matteo Manassero. He tied for 13th in the Open Championship last year, four shots from getting into a playoff with Tom Watson and Stewart Cink. Manassero was 16 then. He was 16 when he became the youngest player to make the cut in the Masters last month en route to tying for 36th.
Manassero turned 17 on April 19. He turns pro today and will make his pro debut Thursday in his national championship, the Italian Open.
Who ever thought Woods at 34 would seem old? Who ever thought that Lorena Ochoa, whose appearance in the Tres Maria was the last of her stellar career, would at 28 seem like a veteran who has already had a full life as a tournament player? She finished sixth in the Tres Maria, seven shots behind Miyazato.
Meanwhile, McIlroy and the other superb young players are really only beginning their pro careers. The weekend results further stamped them as players worth watching. Mickelson, 39 and a four-time major champion, said of McIlroy, "He's some kind of player."
Irishman Padraig Harrington, a three-time major champion, said, "It's a big deal for [McIlroy]to come over here and start winning."
McIlroy and Fowler are in the field at the Players this week. Ishikawa isn't in, but it's clear he'll be there plenty of times in the future. It will certainly be interesting to see how Manassero performs in the Italian Open in his pro debut.
Youth is being served. Golfing youths are playing some fantastic golf.
Woods? Okay, he's hardly yesterday's man. But it's reasonable to wonder about what sort of tomorrow he has. As for the youngsters, it's also reasonable to suggest their tomorrows are looking very promising.