Wunderkind Guan's 'grand slam' dream
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, March 19, 2013
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China's 14-year-old prodigy Guan Tianlang has set his sights sky-high by aiming to become the first player to claim golf's legendary 'grand slam': winning all four majors in the same year. [File photo] |
China's 14-year-old prodigy Guan Tianlang has set his sights sky-high by aiming to become the first player to claim golf's legendary 'grand slam': winning all four majors in the same year.
Guan will next month become the youngest golfer to compete at the US Masters -- the first of the season's most prestigious tournaments - when he tees off at Augusta National aged just 14 years, five months and 17 days.
And the Guangzhou schoolboy, who will smash the record set by Italy's Matteo Manassero in 2010 when he was aged just 16, said that he hopes the Masters will just be the starting-point.
"I have a dream since I was a little boy," Guan said in an exclusive interview. "I wish, one day, I can win all four majors in one year."
Such an achievement would eclipse even Guan's idol, the 14-time major-winner Tiger Woods, who won all four of golf's major championships consecutively, but not in the same calendar year, from the US Open in 2000 to the Masters in 2001.
Guan will rub shoulders with Woods at the Masters, and he may come up against his hero again at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, when golf will make its return to the Games.
"It is every athlete's dream to represent their home country to compete at the Olympics," Guan said.
"It will be the greatest honor to me if I can represent China to play at the 2016 Olympics and I will definitely keep working hard on it."
Guan, who regularly trains in the United States, started playing golf at the age of four and is already a record-breaker.
Last April, he became the youngest player to take part in a European Tour event at the Volvo China Open in Tianjin at the age of 13 years and 177 days.
Seven months later he qualified for the Masters - and gave himself a shot at claiming the coveted green jacket - by winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Thailand by just one stroke.
He insists he's not worried about making the cut at the Masters, something Manassero achieved three years ago, and just wants to enjoy his debut foray into the majors.
"It's an honor for me to be able to play with the best golfers in the world," Guan said in the email interview.
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