At age 9, Rory McIlroy went on the Northern Ireland talk show ‘Kelly’.
At age 2, Tiger Woods went on the Mike Douglas show with Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart.
Ok so maybe it’s only those two.
That’s a good track record for me.
My kid just needs a hook.
Something beyond simply being above average at golf to make him interesting enough for TV.
Rory McIlroy had chipping into the washing machine.
Tiger Woods was black.
For even one of them to pan out is damn impressive in its own right.
So much can go wrong from the time a child is dominating their sport in 2nd grade.
That’s a hell of a feat.
Take Michelle Wie for example.
Michelle Wie is a bit of a different case.
Michelle Wie was going to be the first woman to make it on the men’s tour.
She even turned in some extremely promising performances in PGA Tour events before she was old enough to drive.
At the Sony Open in 2004, at age 14, Michelle Wie shot a 2nd round 68.
She missed the cut by only 1 stroke.
But from that point on, she never quite lived up to expectations.
She never did manage to make a cut in a PGA Tour event.
She suffered a wrist injury in 2007.
An injury that some say her swing never fully recovered from.
She went on to have a more than respectable LPGA career.
She won the U.S. Women’s Open in 2014.
But that turned out to be her only major victory.
TLDW:Ty Tryon dominated junior level golf, earning just about every accolade a junior golfer possibly could.
He made national news by forgoing the traditional college route and turning pro at the age of 16.
An especially controversial move for an American golfer in 2001.
He qualified for the PGA Tour at age 17.
He was heralded as golf’s next great champion.
But things just never clicked on tour for him.
He spent the 2003 season on a medical exemption.
He made the cut, but finished the weekend going 78, 80.
He came in at +23 for the tournament.
Tryon continued playing on multiple different lower level tours.
Made multiple attempts to get back on tour.
But he was never able to do so full time.
In the golf world, he’s essentially seen as the poster child for turning pro too young.
The other prodigy golfer who immediately comes to mind is Ryo Ishikawa.
He’s still only 33 years old, so he’s technically still young enough to resurrect his career.
He’s still playing at a high level, and winning occasionally on the Japan Tour.
But he never dominated at the PGA level the way his country had hoped.
He’s never come close to achieving what Hideki Matsuyama has.
Because their fathers didn’t attempt to speak it into existence long before they proved anything?
It does seem to the be the main common denominator between them.
You may even recognize him from this clip that went viral almost 10 years ago.
Tommy Morrissey is 14-years old now.
I’m not sure how realistic his chances of making it as pro golfer are.
Is Tommy Morrissey really a golf prodigy?
They sure do attach that word to his name a lot.
I can’t say for sure.
But I can’t help but suspect it might be the case.
I’m also not even sure that golf is his #1 sport.
Hopefully I’m wrong, because I feel like we’re overdue for the next great one-armed professional athlete.
Jim Abbott retired from pitching 25 years ago.
Shaquem Griffin played a few seasons of linebacker in the NFL with 3/4 of an arm.
But he’s been out of the league since 2020.
From what I can tell, Tommy Morrissey is our next best hope.
I don’t specifically see any evidence of Tommy on a late night talk show.
But he does have a pretty nice clip of him golfing with Tour players as a 6-year old.
And on top of that, he had a segment on CBS Mornings.
There’s no shortage of young Tommy Morrissey content out there.
So he’s got that much going for him.
