While it is premature to put the immensely talented McIlroy in any complex golf equation at the moment, he and his minders will hopefully have cast a cold eye on Baddeley's victory. A winner of the Australian Open as a teenage amateur in 1999, a title he promptly defended in his first year as a professional, Baddeley was heralded as the game's next great hope.

Tiger Woods admitted that at the same age, he wasn't in Baddeley's league as a ballstriker, and it was no surprise when the prodigy was quickly steered towards endorsement-rich America.

?My goal is to become better than Tiger, " said Baddeley at the time. ?He's the benchmark, and I want to get better than the benchmark."

Weighed down by hype, and by the pressure of expectation, it wasn't long before Baddeley was seriously thinking about quitting and going home. Somehow he survived that early burn-out and last weekend at the age of 25, he finally lived up to his star billing with victory at the Verizon Heritage. ?I feel like I've been around forever, " he said.

Greg Norman, whose kingdom he was once supposed to inherit, left a congratulatory message on Baddeley's phone. ?I know a lot of pressure has been placed on him in Australia to be the next big star, " Norman explained.

Hopefully the win will be the catalyst to take him to the next level."

Presumably Norman was talking about contending in, and winning, major championships, but there is absolutely no guarantee on current evidence that Baddeley will be able to take his game to the next level. Because as professional soccer and rugby players reach their peak at younger ages, elite men's golf is the playground of the thirtysomethings and older.

When Augusta was lengthened to almost 7,500 yards, there was widespread belief that the recent Masters tournament would be the preserve of the bombers. It was . . . the older bombers. Fred Couples at 46 emerged as the main challenger to Phil Mickelson who turns 36 in June, while 30-year-old Tim Clark was the youngest contender. No player in his twenties finished in the top 10, and Jose Maria Olazabal, at 40 years old, was the leading European.

Apart from Woods, who has been the shining exception to the rule that experience counts for infinitely more than youthful talent, the majors have largely been a wasteland of late for the game's best young players.

Apart from Woods, no player in his twenties has won either the Masters or the USPGA in the past 10 years, and only one player in his twenties . . . Ernie Els at Congressional in 1997 . . . has won the US Open in the same period.

The British Open has proved more fruitful with Justin Leonard, David Duval, Ben Curtis and of course Woods, all winning as twentysomethings since 1996, yet of the four, only Woods and Leonard have gone on to build successful careers. In fact, Curtis, whose extraordinary success at Royal St George's in 2003 remains his only win, has missed the cut in seven out of 10 majors since then, and is the only player in his twenties who currently holds a major title.

Elsewhere, Vijay Singh at 43 and Retief Goosen, Woods, Mickelson and Els, all in their thirties, continue to dominate the world rankings, while Woods was the only player in his twenties to be included in the last USA Ryder Cup team at Oakland Hills.

When a kid comes out and he's 21, I think everyone expects him to be a worldbeater, " said Jim Furyk recently. Everyone is looking for the next Tiger Woods and there's not too many of those."

For Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Luke Donald, Charles Howell, and to a lesser extent Baddeley . . . who represent the next generation in most books . . . Woods has cast a long shadow. It seems that the best young players have watched the bar being raised, and sub-consciously at best have concluded that it is out of their reach.

You're going to see kids at a younger age, because they're showing it can be done, " said Woods of Garcia and Howell in 2002. ?I just hope they're mature enough to handle it."

Howell certainly hasn't been. After winning in America in 2002, great things were expected of the rising star from Augusta, but he has failed to deliver since then and hasn't finished in the top 35 of the PGA Tour all season, and flopped at the Masters where he finished dead last.

He's no longer even the best player named Howell in the world.

I give myself a B for my career so far, " he said after splitting with his long-time coach David Leadbetter. I've only won once, and at the end of the day it's about winning tournaments, and then even a step further than that, it's about winning majors."

With six victories on the PGA Tour and six more in Europe, Garcia has proved himself a winner, but as every season passes and as his putting remains woefully inconsistent, he looks less likely to win a major. At 26, he can expect to earn between 12m and 14m this year from prize money and endorsements even without the major success he craves, so Garcia is already wealthy enough to walk away from the game right now.

So is Scott who, at 25, has admitted that his attitude is too defensive in the big tournaments. The Australian has already played in 20 majors and has only two top-10 finishes to his credit, and like Garcia appears to have been cowed by Woods's dominance.

Tom Lehman once said it was imperative to think of catching Woods, and of passing him because he won't be coming the other way", yet as the next wave of players unfurls, it is in danger of petering out rather than crashing ashore.

Taking up Lehman's point, Donald, who has won twice in America, has made it clear that there is only one way to close the gap on Woods. I've got to start believing that I'm as good as him. If I don't believe that I'm not going to be as good as him, full stop."

While Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros all won majors before they were 30, the Woods factor and burgeoning prize money have clearly combined to blunt the ambitions of a new generation.

However, there is also a belief that a high proportion of the younger players are long on power and technique, but short on creativity and on putting skill. There is no doubt that the likes of JB Holmes, Bubba Watson, Camilo Villegas, Scott and Howell have impressive swings, but the obvious tendency now is to try to overpower a course. The responsibility might lie as much with coaching as with advances in equipment, but this generation is not a generation of feel players.

Garcia stands out from the crowd in that he has demonstrated on many occasions the imagination to succeed in major championships, yet he too has failed to take his game to a higher level. His putting weakness is manifest, and in the seven tournaments he has played in America so far this year, he has never broken 70 in the final round. Even if it is probably temporary, his nerve appears to have already gone at 26.

While Nick Faldo, Mark O'Meara and Ballesteros have lost their games, other members of the older guard such as Couples, Lehman, Singh and even Olazabal are playing some of the best golf of their careers. All you can keep doing is getting better and better and see what comes along, " said Garcia recently with more than a hint of resignation.

Perhaps the younger players can take comfort in the wait Mickelson endured before capturing his first major title. But like Baddeley, and his reference to feeling like he has been on tour forever", it is questionable whether Garcia and others will still have the desire in a few years' time.

The wait is not for the next Tiger Woods, but for one of the next generation to step out of his shadow.