Coming of Age

By way of a compromise, he recommends a truncated university career as being better than nothing: "Even two years can help with the growing up process."

He sees Ko, with her amazing amateur credentials, as a player who was probably right to make the transition sooner rather than later but still he worries about her. As he sees it, his new pupil is practicing too hard and is in danger of running into unnecessary injury problems. "Lydia," he says, "is only 17 and if she keeps going at this pace, things are going to get out of hand."

He remembers Wie making kindred mistakes at a time when she and her family did not fully understand the implications of injury problems tucked away, say, in a wrist. There was more than one occasion when Michelle came back too soon and, even as recently as 2012, there was no question that was affected by a degree of physical and mental burn-out.

Leadbetter still winces at the memory of how an injured Wie set out to play alongside the men in the 2005 Omega European Masters in one of those periods when she was light years removed from full fitness. She finished last, or close to last, and her performance precipitated a fresh wave of criticism, with the European Tour deciding, then and there, that they would not want a repeat performance.

When Leadbetter saw how much good it did Michelle to take six weeks off at the start of this season - "the whole family went back to Hawaii and she didn’t touch a club in that period" - he made sure that Ko was aware.

Not only that, but he asked Wie to talk to her - past prodigy to present.

"There is a certain empathy between them," says Leadbetter. "Michelle’s dealt with much of what Lydia is having to deal with and Lydia sees Michelle as someone who understands."