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The Next Golf Prodigy?
If you're wondering who will rewrite the record book after Tiger Woods, 6-year-old Reece Campbell may be the answer By Lisa Taddeo
Associate Editor, GOLF MAGAZINE Formal training aside for the
time being, Reece plays every day
before school, after school, all day
and into the night, weather permitting,
on his outdoor putting green
or into his net. Is it play or work?
On the ticker for the latter: his allowance
is contingent on his practicing every day
on or off the course, and playing round
with either his father or Connachan
on alternate days.
Ask Reece if he's going to be a great
golfer one day: "I'm already a great
golfer," he says in his baby brogue, head
cocked like anyone who thinks otherwise
is mad. Ask him who he wants to
beat most and the answer is inevitable:
"Tiger Woods." And what will he say
when he meets his nicknamesake? "I
will ask him who his favorite Power
Ranger is, and then, when my muscles
are big, I shall show him how to zoom
the ball to the moon."
As happens to the extraordinary
among the ordinary in our age, Reece
has become a business. He's made eight
television appearances, including a
segment on ESPN's Cold Pizza, and has
his own web site: tiny woods.co.uk.
He even has a signed letter of commendation
from Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He has adopted idiosyncratic tags too.
Before striking, he points to where he's
going to send the ball the way Babe Ruth
once did. This is something his parents
have taught him, to inculcate the talent,
to brand the product. As Reece points
his small arm high up and toward the
faraway green, his father says, "Who
used to do that, Reece? The Great who?"
After a few more prods, Reece answers:
"The Great...Bambino!"
His parents can insist until the sheep
come home that the child wants all this
for himself, but, at a certain point, a
child will get bored, grow lazy, pick up
a Lego set and act his age. A child like
Reece, however, would be upsetting a
whole country if he flushed his talent
down the potty-trainer. Still, when asked
if he ever thinks it'd be more fun to
just drop the clubs and play with his
soldiers, there's an uncoached look in
his eye, and with the look comes an
unmeasured answer: "No, I just wanna
play golf."
Even if his parents aren't forcing this
life on Reece, a world he has yet to meet
is forcing its will upon him. Like a child
actor, he's an untrod commodity, a raw
mold, or, more aptly, a fresh lump of
Play-Doh. And though the potential to
become something hotly awaited (the
next Tiger Woods) is possible, so, too,
is the flip side of early genius. Reece
could very well burn out as fast as a
candle in the rain, or worse, ebb slowly
and weather the sort of chaff that
attends a store owner who keeps his
"Grand Opening" banners hanging a
year after the grand opening.
Tag team: Reece's dad, Steven, is never far from his side
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The fact is, this boy has yet to taste
what lies in the salty-sweet folds of
adolescence, and there's a long and
forked road between Play-Doh and
Playboy. Even if you were intent on
raising a shell with a godly swing, you
can't fast-forward him to the climax.
So very much can, will, and should
happen in between.
And who knows? At the 2018 Open
Championship, on some magic Scottish
field, by the wind-whisked seas of his
homeland, Reece Matthew Campbell
Murphy may beat a potbellied Tiger
Woods for a title the latter will have
gotten used to conceding. Or, in that
parallel universe where we all vacation,
in a darkly inviting Edinburgh pub,
Reece might be the good-looking kid
serving you the beer-battered chicken
fingers you'll later wish you declined.
Just like you, though, he might still play
on the weekends.
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