Reigning Asia-Pacific Amateur champion Guan Tianlang is aiming to break more records in his young career and not just next month in Augusta when the 14 year-old becomes the youngest player to tee off at The Masters. Tianlang, from Lion Lake Golf Club in Guangzhou, played the Emirates Australian Open for the first time last December after earning a Golf Australia exemption when he won the International Final of the Aaron Baddeley International Junior Championship in China earlier in 2012. The Chinese prodigy will surpass the Masters age record set by Italian Matteo Mannasero who was 16 when he teed off in 2010 but dreams of securing the career grand-slam. “I have a dream since I was a little boy,” Tianlang said in an exclusive interview with AFP. “I wish, one day, I can win all four majors in one year.” Achieving that goal would leave him one record ahead of his playing idol Tiger Woods and in contention to represent China at the 2016 Rio Olympics. “It is every athlete&aposs dream to represent their home country to compete at the Olympics,” Guan told AFP. “It will be the greatest honour to me if I can represent China to play at the 2016 Olympics and I will definitely keep working hard on it.” This April it will be Tianlang who looks forward to following in the footsteps of 2010 and 2011 champion Japan&aposs Hideki Matsuyama, who in April 2012 made the cut in the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club for the second straight year. In 2012, fellow Chinese amateur Andy Zhang became the youngest golfer to play the US Open, also at 14, when he took the place of the injured Paul Casey. No player has achieved the modern-era grand slam.
Author: Golf Australia / Agencies