14-Year-Old Earns Masters Berth; Poulter, Lewis Win; McIlroy Signs

There'll be a 14-year-old playing in The Masters next April. The golfer is Guan Tianglang of China, and he earned an automatic spot in the field at the 2013 Masters by winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.

When Guan tees it up at the 2012 Masters, he'll become the youngest-ever golfer in that tournament. He'll be 14 years, five months and 17 days old at that time. The previous youngest Masters competitor was (still is, for a few more months) Matteo Manassero. Manassero was about a week shy of turning 17 when he played th 2010 Masters.

More notes from the world of golf heading into a new week:

• Ian Poulter closed with a 65 to win the WGC HSBC Champions in China. It's only his second PGA Tour victory (both are WGC events), but his 12th European Tour win. Poulter also set a tournament scoring record of 267.
  
  
• Stacy Lewis won the LPGA Mizuno Classic, her fourth LPGA win of the year, and in so doing virtually clinched the Player of the Year Award. Mathematically, Inbee Park still has a chance to edge Lewis for POY. But not a very realistic chance. Lewis now has a 58-point lead over Park with two tournaments left. If Park wins both those tournament while Lewis fails to earn any points, then Park would win by two points. That's very unlikely to happen.
  
  
• Various reports indicate that Rory McIlroy has already signed a new equipment deal with Nike Golf, one that pays him as much as $250 million. The annual price of the reported deal is more than Nike pays Tiger Woods, who helped sell Nike to McIlroy. Neither Nike nor McIlroy has confirmed these reports, but allegedly McIlroy has already taped his first commercial for Nike.