Prodigies come and go. Sometimes they disappear. We shrug. After all, we’ve seen Tiger Woods.
But on Thursday we saw Tianlang Guan. Age fourteen.
“I want to win all four majors,” he said. “Hopefully maybe in the same year.”
He said it in precise English. There was an interpreter nearby to clear up any problems, but he had none, either with interviewers or with the first round of the Masters.
Guan needed only 25 putts on the most famously perplexing greens in championship golf.
He rolled in a 20-footer from just off the green at 18, officially capturing the galleries who knew what they were watching a 14-year-old, shooting one-over-par 73 on a 6,799m course.
“Phenomenal,” said Fred Couples, who is 39 years older than Guan.
Guan was very much a product of 21st-century golf culture. He wore bright blue pants and a blue and white shirt and a cap advertising the Lion Lake club, where he plays in Guangdong, China.
He has a flat, low-maintenance swing, as he winds up his upper body, and he hardly blinks. On No.3 he made his first birdie putt, and he knuckle-bumped Kevin Ham, his caddie from Augusta National.
In a bit of Augusta mischief, Guan’s partners were 61-year-old Ben Crenshaw, double Masters champion, and 19-year-old Matteo Manassero, who was the youngest-ever Masters rookie in 2010, when he hadn’t quite turned 17.
Guan parred his way around to the sixth hole, a par-3 with a green that acts more like a cliff. He was above the hole, which meant he had to bump his chip into the bank and watch it trickle down, an operation as delicate as eye surgery.
He did so, spectacularly, and had a two-footer for par. Crenshaw held out his hands in surrender.
“That chip was pretty tough,” Guan said. “I don’t want to be there another time.”
“That’s one of the best shots you’ll ever see,” Crenshaw told the applauding fans. “Awesome.”
The awe never faded. Guan birdied the 10th and 13th, withstood three bogeys in a five-hole stretch, and ended with a grace note.
“When you think about it, he might play 60 Masters,” Rory McIlroy said.
He’ll have to hustle to make the cut, but he was three shots better than Ian Poulter, Bubba Watson and Hunter Mahan, five better than Padraig Harrington and Nick Watney.
Crenshaw, who played a practice round with Guan on Monday, walked around proudly, as if unleashing a secret that only he knew.
“He played like a journeyman who has been out here for years,” he said. “He played four of the best shots around the green that I’ve ever seen. I told Matteo’s caddie that it must be nice to have 14-year-old nerves.”
Guan is an eighth grader. His parents said he has been doing his homework all week, until now. He said he doesn’t practise his short game at home “because I have school until 5 o’clock,” and there isn’t time. He plays a little basketball, but the rest of it is golf.
He got here because he won the Asian Pacific Amateur. He led by five at one point, but had to get down in two on the final hole to win by one.
When he was 13 he was the youngest player to ever reach a European Tour event. When he was 12 he won his division of the Junior World championships, at Torrey Pines, by 11 strokes.
His nickname is Langly, and his father, Guan Han Wen, is a doctor. He is a regular visitor to Angeles National, near Pasadena, where he works on his game in the summer while he stays with friends.
Last year he tried to qualify for the US Open at Lakewood Country Club in New Orleans. He failed, but will go back there next week for practice.