The Buick Invitational welcomes the young guns
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents
LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Tiger Woods calls him Marko.
That's Mark O'Meara, who became Woods' close friend and unofficial mentor when the precocious 19-year-old burst onto the scene in 1996. With Woods now firmly entrenched as the No. 1 player in the game, though, O'Meara has moved on.
Not that the two aren't still friends -- quite the contrary. Now, though, it seems the 22-year-old Anthony Kim is the one picking O'Meara's brain.
Kim and O'Meara played together at the Merrill-Lynch Shootout in December, and the two-time major champion came away extremely impressed.
"I see a lot of talented young players," O'Meara said. "Nothing really kind of jumped out at me until I played with this kid ... I was blown away."
O'Meara remembers telling his wife and virtually anyone who would listen about Kim, who was third at last week's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He was wowed by the young Californian's ability to work the ball -- something of a lost art in these days of long-ball hitters -- as well as his short game.
O'Meara was also impressed by Kim's candor.
"(He said) I know I've made some comments and I've made some mistakes, and I was very young and I was very naïve," O'Meara recalled. "(He said) I've got to tell you, I've learned from those, and I want to change. So I went to dinner with him a couple nights, and I told him for him to come up and say that to me, somebody who he really didn't know that well, was already a step in the right direction."
O'Meara and Kim played practice rounds together several times during the off-season. He told Kim that he has as much talent, or more, than any other player he's seen besides Woods. Asked to compare the two at 21, O'Meara didn't hesitate.
"I think Tiger's mental game was probably stronger," he said. "I think actual technique-wise, swing-wise, I reckon Anthony's swing is better at 21 or 22 than what Tiger's was. But just because you have a good swing and just because you might hit the ball well doesn't mean that you're going to win tournaments...
"I see a little bit of immaturity, younger, kind of aggressive, kind of gets a little hot under the collar, but all those things are things that we've kind of talked about. You know, hopefully he'll take that to heart. I imagine he's going to play well this week, too, because he's coming off a good week last week, and he's confident.
"There's no way he shouldn't play well every week. He's way too skilled not to."
* * *
Another player with designs on unseating Woods is the 20-year-old Aussie Jason Day, who supplanted Kim as the youngest player on TOUR this year.
Late last year, the Nationwide Tour graduate told an Australian newspaper, "I'm sure I can take him down." There was more, but most people didn't get past that first rather brash, bold comment.
For the record, Day went on to say that he wanted to work hard and measure himself against Woods -- not unlike Woods did against Jack Nicklaus. He also admitted it would be a "big ask" to keep pace with the man who has won 61 times already.
What many people don't know, though, is that Day says reading a book about Woods changed his life in "more ways than anyone could have foreseen." He says the first time he meets the game's No. 1 player, "I've got to thank him for that."
Does that sound like the arrogant kid people have made the Aussie out to be?
"I know the people who love me the most know who I am," Day said. "And I know that the people who finally come up to me and approach me know what kind of person I am.
"Obviously, the media, well, some of the prints that have come out, have given a false sense of who I am, and people kind of take it the wrong way. Tiger is Tiger, and you can't deny that. He is the greatest golfer.
"Obviously, if I work towards that and hopefully overcome that and become No. 1, then that's my goal. But at the moment, a lot of people are seeing me as an arrogant, confident kid. It doesn't worry me. I'm not out here to express that.
"I'm just out here to do a job and try and practice hard and win tournaments. That's all I'm trying to do."
When he picked up the Woods biography that inspired him so much, Day admits that his "life was going in the wrong direction." His family didn't have a lot of money, and after his father died of cancer when Day was 12, the family was a bit fractured.
The pain was still evident on Tuesday when Day talked about the day his father told him he only had two months to live. He wiped a tear away from under his right eye and stopped talking abruptly, waiting for someone to change the subject.
After his father died, Day, who admitted to fighting and underage drinking when he was young, was sent away to a boarding school about 90 minutes south of Brisbane. It's there he met Colin Swatton, who has become his coach, caddy, chaperone and surrogate father. That's where he turned his game -- and his life -- around.
"I don't regret anything, and it has made me a better person," said the baby-faced Day who sports a sparse goatee. "I'm much more mature than my 20 years."
Get the best deals on the best equipment all at the SHOP.PGATOUR.COM.
WATCH LIVE!
PGATOUR.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network