Looking for a Young Crop of Challengers

Trivia time.

Can you name the only American player still in his 20s at the end of the 2007 golf season with more than two victories to his credit on the PGA Tour since the turn of the 21st Century?

Would it surprise you to know that Jonathan Byrd, who turned 30 this past January, held that distinction? He had victories at the 2002 Buick Challenge, the 2004 B.C. Open and the 2007 John Deere Classic, none of them against elite fields, or with Tiger Woods playing that week either.

Here's another.

How many American players now in their 20s have more than one victory on the PGA Tour? Can you believe the total is only four -- Sean O'Hair, D.J. Trahan, J.B. Holmes and Charles Howell III, each with two wins, none of them in major championships.

Every year since Tiger Woods turned professional in 1996, we've heard wonderful things about the latest up-and-coming hotshot phenom coming out of the junior ranks or big-time college golf poised to make his mark on the PGA Tour and become the next great rival to Woods's continuing supremacy. Instead, many show occasional flashes of brilliance, but more often they most resemble mere mortal flashes in the pan.

Remember Charles Howell III? He came out of Oklahoma State in 2000 after winning the NCAA championship and earned his tour card in 2001 as well as rookie of the year honors with several impressive finishes while playing on a limited number of sponsor's exemptions.

There was a time when he was thought to be America's next great star. Instead, while still earning a comfortable living and occasionally contending on Sunday, the native of Augusta, Ga., has only won at the 2002 Kingsmill Open and 2007 Nissan Open. He's played in 24 major championships, with his best finish a tie for 10th in the 2003 PGA Championship. At the Masters in his hometown, he's missed the cut three of the last four years.

Remember Matt Kuchar, the 1997 U.S. Amateur champion and the college player of the year at Georgia Tech? He made quite the splash in '98, when he was low amateur at both the Masters (tie for 21st) and U.S. Open (tie for 14th), then won for the first time on the PGA Tour in 2002 at the Honda Classic.

Now 29, he hasn't won since, and dipped low enough on the money list to move to the Nationwide Tour in 2006, though he's back on the big tour now. Still, after tying for 50th at the '99 Masters, Kuchar has either missed the cut or not been in the field in every major since.

At the moment, only one under-30 American player -- 25-year-old Sean O'Hair -- is listed among the top 30 players in the world golf rankings at No. 28, and only four more U.S. players in their 20s are among the top 50. O'Hair clearly has emerged as the best 20-something American now on tour, a kid with immense talent and plenty of heart who went head-to-head playing in the final group with Woods in March at Bay Hill, only to lose on the 72nd hole when Woods drained a 28-foot birdie putt.

O'Hair already has won twice in three-plus years on the tour, and also contended a year ago at the prestigious Players Championship until his bold play down the stretch in an attempt to beat final-group playing partner Phil Mickelson led to a quadruple bogey seven at the 71st hole on Sunday.