Golf: In Rory's slump lies lesson for soaring Lydia

Youth is wondrous yet it is temporary, especially in sport, and Rory McIlroy should remind Lydia Ko of that. Nothing lasts, not pimples nor perfect, fearless days. The Northern Irishman is 24 and the Kiwi 16, both golfing children of a sort, yet as one slumps, the other soars. One has not met expectation yet, the other is being wounded by it.

McIlroy lives the compressed existence of the great athlete: so much done in so little time. At 24, he has won two Majors, reached No.1 and topped money lists on both sides of the Atlantic - which he evidently crossed by walking on water. Now he can't even qualify for the year-end, top 30-players Tour Championship.

McIlroy used to be Lydia. Used to be a kid whose uncorrupted talent made you grin. In his bouncy walk lay his eager ambition, in his unrestrained swing rested his unafraid youth.

Lydia is his demure heir, who calmly strikes the ball as if with a flowing, steel whip. Like McIlroy, she is proof that nothing in sport is as delicious as newness. Every new star is magical possibility awoken again.

Lydia, even if not for much longer, is strangely still an amateur. In a covetous era, her forfeiting of $400,000 for second place at last week's Evian Championship - not to mention over $1 million across two years - makes her appear a sweet anachronism.

Yet her delay in turning professional is demonstration of an uncommon wisdom. It is talent not in a rush. She plays on the LPGA Tour but is not a member of it, immersed in a professional's world yet without its cumbersome responsibilities - she isn't answerable to a sponsor, for instance.

She has played alongside older women, seen them train, seen the effect of failure on them, seen the purity of their skill, and it is the most valuable of apprenticeships. And even as she has won four pro events, golf has been a joy not a job and it is a fine distinction.

Professionals love golf, too, but their self-worth is often determined by results. Their measurement forever - by us and themselves - is through numbers. McIlroy was reminded of this by an Irish paper which noted unsentimentally this week: "Rory McIlroy hits new low: 36 holes, 10 bogeys, 2 double bogeys, 1 treble bogey, 24 shots behind leader."

Welcome to adulthood.

Lydia is not there yet, she is world No.5 yet still caught in the last innocent moment in sport. The moment when talent blossoms but before reputation and expectation stalk it. She is playing grown-up golf but is still allowed to be a girl. On the 18th green, she was laughing with Suzanne Pettersen, who beat her to the Evian trophy. Later, as titles slip away, life will never quite be as carefree.

Eventually, she will turn professional because it is irresistible. For one it allows adults to wear shorts and get paid to play sport. It is also an answering to an instinct, a primitive urge that pushes athletes to examine their talents against another's, for high stakes. In a way all sport is boxing in a more sophisticated guise.

And like men in the ring, it is also guaranteed to break your heart as McIlroy is discovering.

The curly-haired teen of playful honesty has been replaced by a tired man now dissected like a lab specimen. He is 36th on the US PGA Tour money list and 54th in the Race to Dubai. Last year he led both - he played 16 events on the US tour for four wins and 10 top-10s; this year in 15 events he has five top-10s and no wins.

His legend limping, he sounded bewildered this week: "I didn't expect to be in this position." But no one does. For all the proof of the capriciousness of sport, it is never quite real till it happens to you.

It is why Lydia should study him. It is why she should remember that once she turns pro, people no longer see a kid and they are no longer as kind. It is why she needs to grow a second skin for scrutiny at the top feels like sandpaper.

When he was winning, McIlroy was the natural. Now golf's blind knife-thrower can't hit a 40-yard fairway. And so every swing, every girlfriend visit, every club change, every sponsor signing, ever management company change is publicly discussed. But the arrival of form and its abrupt disappearance remains a mystery.

McIlroy has an abundance of gifts which makes his return imminent. But he will be, you think, an altered player. The public glare rewards and yet it erodes a man.

He said recently, and defiantly, "I'm 24" and he has so many years left. But the boy in him may be lost forever. It is why Lydia should enjoy these last moments that she is a golfing girl. A girl who laughed on Sunday about turning pro and said: "It's a secret. I got to get my mum's permission to say anything else."

rohitb@sph.com.sg

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