But good Lord, I know enough that http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/usopen11/news/story?id=6678101 - winning the U.S. Open at 22-years-old with a record breaking -16 is something special. He's the second-youngest player to win the Open since the 1940s. 

Kid is younger than I am. Meaning that I now feel the need to question what I'm doing with my damn life. 

He's been playing golf since he could walk and practiced under the same professional coach since he was 6 or 7 years old. I don't mean to lessen his accomplishments, but his skill wasn't something he motivated himself to get. When you start that young, with such support from your parents, it isn't much of a choice to be motivated to pursue an activity. It just becomes a part of you. While he may have some traits that have helped him all along, I think there would be more prodigies out there if more parents or guardians knew how to bring out their kids' potentials.

There's no reason to feel unaccomplished because of these guys. They had opportunities none of us had. Under the same circumstances, I'd have be a competitive aerobatic pilot by know, tallen would have been a celebrity chef, you would've traveled the world, chewp would've been working for PIXAR (sorry man, I don't know any famous animators); we could do this for anybody on the forum.

As impressive as it all is, his age doesn't change anything for me unless he first picked up a golf club no earlier than when he was in high school.

It was more the interesting phenomenon I think everyone ends up witnessing, where the stars in sports begin to be younger than you. I'm almost at that point now. Last year, the Nationals debuted their hot-shot 21-year-old Stephen Strasburg who threw for 14 strikeouts in his first opener. 

But, his elbow is all blown out now, whereas I have two working elbows. 

Jokes on him. 

 

Alternatively, are we reaching the pinnacle of human limits? In athletics, are were pushing so hard that we are reaching the limit of how fast we can run and throw?

Strasburg is a unique situation, because I think his trainers are partially responsible for his blown elbow.  

He tore his ulnar collateral ligament - the Tommy John - I think because of his exaggerated mechanics. Growing up in college ball and the minors, his mechanics were right on the egde of what will start causing physical problems. What I think happened was he got his start in the major leagues, and his otherwise on-the-edge mechanics exaggerated into the unsafe. He started late-cocking and high-cocking the ball on the forward motion, making the dreaded "inverted W" that puts all of the throwing stress on the ulnar collateral ligament. 

His pitching trainers should have seen that he was cocking the ball higher and later each throw as the game progressed and told him to calm down, drop his shoulder, drop his elbow, etc. 

But they didn't. They let him keep going, because, honestly, I think their mindset was "Well he's doing so well, let him go." 

Now he's in an 1-year plus physical rehab period for Tommy John surgery.