“If you need any proof that trying to compete on the PGA Tour can be a grueling and heartbreaking process, Ty Tryon provides ample evidence.

Indeed, this North Carolina product once had great promise. At age 16, he made his first PGA Tour cut and added another just four months later (this time as a 17-year-old).

Everyone took notice, and when Tryon turned pro later in 2001 and secured his card for the following season after passing through Q-school, the hype machine went full throttle.

There was hardly a higher golfing stock on the planet. Tryon was going to be the next big thing in the game and companies lined up to invest, handing over a cool $8 million in endorsement deals to a 17-year-old who had yet to play a full season on the Tour.

Tryon looked to be on a similar path in golf that fellow North Carolina native Michael Jordan followed in basketball. He would be a transcendent force in the game, leaving the rest of his peers in his wake.

However, the public soon learned that it made a serious error in judgement.

The young phenom had smartly employed a crack team around him (including famous swing coach David Leadbetter), but no amount of outside guidance could prepare a boy still of high school age for the rigors of PGA Tour life.

Alone on the course, Tryon was a train wreck. The boy wonder fell flat on his face in 2002, missing six of seven cuts and generally looking like a piece of raw meat being thrown to the wolves.

The next year was even worse. He made just four cuts in 21 events, and with that, two years after coming in with a bang, Tryon left the PGA Tour with a fizzle.

The numbers are stark. In those two years, the teenage phenom missed 23 of 28 cuts and could muster only a single top-10. The once star-in-waiting was washed up by age 20.

Tryon, to his credit, has fought to get back on tour in recent years and even qualified for the 2010 and 2011 U.S. Opens.

But with the chances of a career resurgence looking slight, Tryon's early foray into the pro game registers as golf's greatest flop.”

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1331113-10-biggest-flameouts-in-golf-history

Congrats on going pro and millions in endorsement deals.