Manassero Shows That You Are Never Too Young

The story of how Matteo Manassero learnt the game of golf is quite similar to that of another young prodigy. He, like Tiger Woods, began his love affair with the game from the moment he could walk and talk, "I started at 3 years old. My parents brought me to a small driving range in the city, in my hometown, Verona. So from there, actually I never stopped. I always forced my parents to bring me to the golf course, so that's my strange life."

Since then the game has seemingly come easy to the young Italian. In his only two major starts he has finished T-13 at the 2009 British Open and T-36 at the 2010 U.S Masters. Both times he took out the title of best amateur. At the British Open he was part of a special pairing with Tom Watson and Sergio Garcia for the first two rounds and became the youngest recipient of the silver medal since it was first awarded 60 years ago, but it was Manassero's performance at the Masters that was particularly special as he became the youngest player ever to make the cut, at 16 years and 11 months.

By early 2010 Manassero had a stranglehold on the number 1 amateur ranking, and on the back of that special run of form he decided to turn professional. It is an exciting prospect that will now see him compete regularly against the world's best, and it will be interesting to see how he performs in the rest of the majors this year, which will at least include an invitation to the British Open at St. Andrews.

Tom Watson said that "golf is a game for life, you are never too young to start and you are never too old to play." Manassero has shown that he is certainly not too young to show up his older competitors with the maturity and precise drone play of a player twice his years.