Kim Shows the Swagger and the Swing to Back Up Talk of Topping Tiger

The search to identify the next big thing continues in ever more perplexing circles in the European game - Paul Casey? Martin Kaymer? Rory McIlroy? Justin Rose? - but in the United States the hunt is over and his name is Anthony Kim.

"I see a lot of talented young players. Nothing really jumped out at me until I played with this kid," said Mark O'Meara, twice a major winner. "I was like, whoa, this guy has got some game because he plays the little shots. He wants to win. He has got as much talent or more than any other player I've ever seen besides Tiger.

"At 22 I think Tiger's mental game was probably stronger. Technique-wise, swing-wise, I reckon his swing is better at 21, 22 than what Tiger's was."

More than anyone else O'Meara, who chaperoned Woods through the early stage of his professional career, is well placed to make comparisons but those inclined to seek a second opinion need look no further than Butch Harmon, who as Woods' former swing coach played a significant role in making him the player he has become.

"This kid is the future of golf on the PGA Tour," Harmon says. "I like his golf game, I like his confidence and I like the fact that he has come out on tour and contended straight away, just like he said he would. It ain't bragging if you can back it up."

The bragging to which Harmon referred was Kim's contention last year, his first full one on the PGA Tour, that he intended to usurp Woods. It was a silly contention then and it remains a silly contention but it no longer seems so outlandish after Kim's victory at the Wachovia Championship.

Admittedly Woods, currently recuperating from knee surgery, was not around to defend a title he won last year but the manner of Kim's victory - he beat the field by five shots - at a tournament considered to be one of the more prestigious on the tour has elevated the 22-year-old Californian from the being the choice of the cognoscenti to the man of the moment.

It was even a popular victory with the tour, which might not have been the case in the past when his evident confidence did not go down too well with some of the older players. "It took me an hour to unpack my bag because so many people were coming up to congratulate me," he said yesterday at the TPC Sawgrass venue for this week's Players Championship. "I don't know if it would have been the same way [two years ago]. But I took a couple of licks and I realize the mistakes I made. Now I am looking forward to being a better golfer and a better professional."

As for replacing his prospects of replacing Woods as the No1, like many others he has seen the light, or at least the reality. "He is so far ahead of the rest of us . . . I'm just trying to be the best player I can be."

Golf fashion being as faddish as every other kind of fashion, he will start today's opening round of the so-called "fifth major" as one of the favorites to take a title won last year by Phil Mickelson. It will help his cause, and the cause of every other player in the field, that Woods is not in the field, although Kim was quick to play down his own chances, claiming exhaustion. He probably had a point, although at this level the confidence that comes from winning breeds confidence.

By the standards currently being set by Kim, as well as the likes of Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman, these are flat times for the younger Turks of the European game. By no means can the likes of Rose and Casey be described as having had terrible seasons - it is way too soon for such a judgment - but the time has come for one of them to win an event of this stature. Rose, for one, agrees, having parted company this week with his caddie, the accomplished Mick Doran.