Canadian Brooke Henderson Denied Age Waiver by LPGA

I took notice of seventeen-year old Canadian Brooke Henderson last August at the Canadian Women’s Open and I’m delighted that she’s decided to turn pro. She’s a dynamic young golfer who’s going to deepen the field and sharpen the competition among the youth cohort on the women’s pro golf tours. ESPN Golf reports that Henderson’s coming in hot: She’s signed with IMG, the international management group that also has players like Michelle Wie and Lydia Ko in its stable, she’s secured Ping as a sponsor, and she’ll continue to receive support from Golf Canada’s young professional program. Henderson’s no stranger to competition at high levels. She won her first pro event playing as an amateur when she was 14. She holds the world top amateur rank and she’s been dipping her toe into the pro scene and testing the water for a couple of years. In 2014 she played the weekend at the Kraft Nabisco Championship and the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic, and she finished T10th at the US Women’s Open. She knows she’s ready to tee it up on the big stage!

“Last season was very successful and a big confidence-booster for me in many ways,” Henderson explained during her announcement. “Having that great finish (at U.S. Open) definitely was a point where I could see myself playing in the LPGA Tour, seeing this as a career and taking it to the next step.”

Curiously, Henderson — who’s a year older than Lydia Ko was last year when she successfully petitioned an age waiver to join the Tour — petitioned for an age waiver to participate in this year’s LPGA Q School — a much smaller request — but was denied.

Although that decision effectively blocked her from gaining Tour status, I expect Brooke Henderson will have little difficulty playing in selected Tour events during 2015. Following the model Lexi Thompson and Charley Hull have both employed, and that Stephanie Meadow is likely to use as well, Henderson’s going to either play her way into full Tour status or build her game in pro venues and participate in Q School next year.

At the moment, aside from playing in the 2015 US Women’s Open, Henderson’s immediate future is uncertain. She told Golfweek that she and her older sister, Brittany (who failed to make the 72-hole cut at Q School) will probably travel together and perhaps even caddy for each other.

Still, given’s Henderson’s exceptional achievements, athleticism, and demonstrated capability to manage and to thrive in high-level competition, the LPGA turn-down does seem a bit capricious.

Golf’s Youth Movement

Lydia Ko

The 2015 season has taken on a new focus with Brooke Henderson in the mix. With Lydia Ko ending the 2014 season as she did, walking away from the CME Group Tour Championship with a tidy winner-take-all million dollar package, you might have been thinking that the 2015 season’s going to be more of the same for Ko. Certainly I’ve been reflecting on how long its going to take for her to eclipse Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park and further speculating about how long she’ll hold onto the top of the rankings.

That line of thought didn’t go on for long because Q School opened up the field by adding Aussie teen Minjee Lee and that audacious, intrepid English teen, Charley Hull, to the incoming rookie class. They’ll both offer Ko some competition from her peers.

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With the addition of Brooke Henderson, I can easily envision this quartet of talented teen athletes challenging each other in event after event, not just in the coming season, but in the coming decade, and that possibility is going to have all of us reconfiguring our weekly predictions and fantasy picks.

Michelle Wie (left) and Brittany Lang (right). Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Looking beyond the immediate question of competition among the teen phenoms there’s a larger question looming over pro golf’s youth cohort. Could this group of young athletes be signaling a new trend? Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols raised some intriguing questions about age and the career choices women pro golfers face, and embedded in those questions, implied but not really asked, is the potential advantage youth has over age in a career track that for most has a 10-year limit.

According to Nichols, there’s attrition at every level of the Tour and longevity is the exception rather than the rule. Only eight of the current Tour players have competed for 20 or more years. Only three of the twenty 2004 Golfweek top-ranked players are still on the Tour: Brittany Lang, Hannah Jun Medlock, and Paige Mackenzie. And among the 30 Q School competitors who earned exempt status in 2004 only four are still actively competing. In other words, about 15% of the LPGA 2015 rookie class will still be competing on the Tour in 2025.

What’s the cause of such a high attrition rate? Money and the expansion of adult roles seem to be the drivers.

Laura Diaz

Living the dream has a big financial price tag attached to it — Stacy Lewis paid her caddie $242,000 in 2013 — and it also entails some less tangible costs as well. Laura Diaz has talked openly about her struggles with separation from her children. Catriona Matthew has limited her playing schedule as her daughters have gotten older. Famously, Lorena Ochoa left competition at the apex of professional success to marry and have children.

Biological clocks are at work in the lives of all these talented athletes. Nichols’ data suggest that for most women balancing a professional athletic career that demands constant international travel for ten months out of every year and the very real desire to add parenthood to their adult roles is as daunting as the econometrics of a pro golf career.

If the 10-year career span from rookie to “retirement” is the new reality for women pro golfers, it just doesn’t make good sense to deny athletes like Brooke Henderson access to golf’s fast track.

Next: LPGA 2014 Season: It's A Wrap!

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