Driven: Teen Phenoms, Mad Parents, Swing Science, and the Future of Golf Hardcover - 2008

by Kevin Cook

A look inside the high-pressure creation of the new breed ofsuperstar golfers

No longer the realm of quaint traditions and a few weekly hours practicing chip shots, junior golf has evolved into a fierce training ground, where ultra-high-tech cameras provide cutting-edge swing analysis and young players spend almost every waking hour on the driving range. Reporting from the front lines of this brave new game, veteran golf journalist Kevin Cook spends a year inside the guarded, security-gated David Leadbetter Golf Academy, a three-hundred- acre golf mecca where teenagers attend an on-campus high school and live in dorms alongside state-of- the-art putting greens, video facilities, and manicured links at a cost to their parents of more than $100,000 a year. As often as not, the parents are more driven than the kids.

Driven also explores the scientific knowledge that has allowed upstarts to uncork 320-yard drives and to play better than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson played when they were juniors long ago way back in the 1990s. Cook's subjects include teen superstar Michelle Wie and her pushy parents; Ty Tyron, the youngest player to ever win a Tour card (now a burnout at the age of twenty-three); Mu Hu, expected by his Chinese fans to be the Yao Ming of golf; and tennis superstar Ivan Lendl's daughter, Isabelle, who might be the next Annika Sorenstam.

Destined to change the way the world perceives the game, Driven is a compelling, behind-the-scenes look at golf's next generation.