If you are a teenager with a double-digit handicap reading this, you might think your chances of making it as a pro golfer are nil. After all, Sergio Garcia was competing in European Tour events at 16, while at the same age Rory McIlroy covered Royal Portrush's Dunluce Links, one of the most formidable courses in Ireland, in 61 blows. But it might be worth putting the girls (or the boys) and the grog on the backburner for a little while longer, because for every teenage 'phenom' scorching through the ranks there is a late developer grafting under the radar: big on talent, hamstrung by circumstance. When Ross Fisher won a scholarship to Wentworth aged 13, he didn't have a handicap at all, discounting a lack of funds, which had precluded him from joining a club before then. His first official handicap was 16 and by the age of 16 he was down to six. Very good, although hardly Tiger-esque. "After that, I managed to progress pretty rapidly and had a good amateur career," the 29-year-old Fisher, originally from Ascot but now a resident of Cheam, told BBC Sport. "I turned pro later than some guys do [aged 24] but it seems like I made the right decision." Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bendirs/2010/08/if_youre_a_teenager_reading.html
