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| Crowded at the top |
| Alan Wilkins / Mar 14, 2010, 00:19 IST |
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Keep a mental note of the name, Noh Seung-Yul, pronounced as you see it. He is 18 years old and possesses a golf swing as pure as driven snow. He is South Korean, speaks a smattering of English, but is now US$333,300 richer after four days of golf in Kuala Lumpur, where he just won the Maybank Malaysian Open, a co-sanctioned professional golf tournament between the European Tour and the Asian Tour.
Eighteen years old and in the process of winning this event, he also happened to beat one of the biggest names in Korean and world golf — K J Choi — Noh’s lifelong golfing idol. The 39 year-old Choi predicts that Noh will be one of golf’s great players and will go on to win Major Championships. Tiger…are you listening?
Four days of golf for a teenager at the end of which he could show his father — who was his caddie all four days — a cheque for a third of a million US Dollars. Believe me, with his golf swing, Noh’s path to the big-time has millions of dollars waiting in the avenues of trees he will tread. If you think this achievement is impressive then allow me to showcase some of the most wonderful athletic talents in the world who are already earning the kind of money that makes Noh’s Malaysian Open winner’s cheque seem like a restaurant tip.
Let’s stay with Korea and look at 19- year-old Kim Yu Na, Korea’s figure-skating icon, the “Queen on Ice” who broke world records and millions of hearts in taking the gold last month at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Kim is the first South Korean skater to medal in any discipline of figure skating at the Olympics, and as well as her flawless skating performance, she is also blessed with model looks. Junior world champion, 2009 world champion, and now Olympic champion, her earning capacity is seemingly infinite in a country where good looks on television screens count. She already endorses nine products from banks to dairy products with multiple TV commercial appearances, in some she even sings. She has it all. A US$9 million a year-earning teenager who encapsulates beauty and grace on ice with such breathtaking aesthetic perfection, she could well become the highest-earning female athlete of all time.
But let’s return to the realms of professional golf where there are three stars from different parts of the world who have the world at their feet, so to speak.
Rory McIlroy is a 20-year-old from Northern Ireland who last year won the Dubai Desert Classic, and finished tied for third at the US PGA Championship and tied for tenth at the US Open. He is now world number nine in the official world golf rankings (OWGR). In the United States, he is already being talked about as “the next big thing” in the world of professional golf. He is pure joy to watch on the golf course, caresses the golf ball and embraces fans. Tiger…are you watching?
At 18, Ryo Ishikawa is Japan’s teenage golfing sensation. With a mercurial game and looks to match he is in the stratosphere when it comes to earnings potential. He has broken all records — the youngest winner ever of a men’s Japan Golf Tour professional event at 15 years 8 months, beating the great Spaniard, Severiano Ballesteros, who was 20 years, seven months when he won the 1977 Japan Open. By the close of 2008 the youngster known in Japan as “the Bashful Prince” had become the youngest player ever to reach the top 100 and by September 2009, the youngest ever in the world’s top 50. He has won six professional tournaments in Japan and his earnings were estimated at US$30 million with a string of endorsements. His father is his manager. Clever man!
India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar, at 21, has five professional golf events in India and two Asian Tour events. Although he’s not in the Ishikawa league of earnings, the affable youngster from Kapurthala, Punjab, has the game and the personality to become a star on the world’s golfing stage. I have watched Gaganjeet for the past two years and his ball-striking is as good as anyone who plays in Asia. He has the X-factor in his bag.
All these gifted young athletes have one thing in common. They can perform. Some have already done it on the world’s biggest stage; for others, the steps up to the stage are a bit steeper, but they’ll get there. And they won’t be counting how many, but how much.
Alan Wilkins is a TV broadcaster for ESPN Star Sports. Inside Edge appears every alternate week
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