Golf's greenies lacking rhythm on dance floor

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Anybody got Jonas Salk's cell number?

Charles Howell III tries to get a feel for the greens during practice this week at Augusta National. (AP)

A few years back, American upstart Charles Howell III, still a relative newbie on the PGA Tour, had become fixated on remedying his putting stroke and gotten a welcome Band-Aid from a player he'd always admired -- Sergio Garcia.

Born seven months apart, each had turned pro early, and Garcia was already an established winner who'd fast developed a reputation as a short-game wizard, cut from the same fancy cloth as countryman Seve Ballesteros. Sensing that Howell was ailing, Garcia graciously loaned him a putter.

"Check it out," Howell said at the time, presenting the putter to an observer as they stood on a Florida practice green.

Indeed, stamped in the metal clubhead was Garcia's name, clearly establishing its bona fides. Alas, the magic wand failed to change Howell's fate and was later returned.

With the benefit of hindsight, the exchange now seems akin to two boys from the same playground sharing a pacifier. Whatever putting virus they shared, it's become contagious to the other kids, too.

With the season's first major championship set to begin Thursday at Augusta National, a nuanced course that arguably presents the most daunting greens on the globe, the most promising youngsters in the game have been sent off to the putting pediatrician, essentially en masse.

As it relates to the greens, the majority of the most decorated 20-somethings on the U.S. tour have the measles, rubella or mumps. Almost to a man, the best of those on the tour's horizon suffer from a pox on their putting.

Once the picture of confident youth, Garcia has become the poster boy of putting desperation, El Nino enfermo, seemingly hitting rock bottom on the confidence scale when he lugged two putters around in his bag during the Accenture Match Play Championship in February.

Call it the Ben Crenshaw effect in reverse.

"People always told Crenshaw he was a great putter," veteran Chris DiMarco said. "I always thought Sergio was a good putter, but he's heard so many times how bad he is, he's probably starting to believe it."

Garcia's hardly the lone member of the under-30 club whose ears are ringing. Indeed, with only a couple of exceptions, it's a declarative fact that the winningest young players on tour flat stink with the flat stick.

Harsh, but so is the damnable data. For only the second time in the past half-century, there are no players in the U-30 category with a major championship to their credit. When it comes to the common weaknesses in the so-called Generation Y -- that demographic group born between 1980-94 -- the why is easy to pinpoint.