Or rather “Yo,” as we were instructed last week, regarding proper pronunciation.

Really, there wasn’t too much wrong with 17-year-old Ryo Ishikawa’s American debut at the Northern Trust Open. True, rounds of 73-71 left him three strokes shy of making the cut, but his performance was really rather a solid one – particularly if measured against Tiger Woods’ 1992 arrival in this same event, wherein he shot 72-75 and missed the cut by six. No, Ishikawa’s problem lay not in his own play but rather in the stunning exhibition of golf put on by another of the game’s prominent teenagers, 18-year-old New Zealander Danny Lee, who dazzled a half-decent European Tour field en route to capturing the venerable Johnnie Walker Classic on the other side of the world, in Perth.

Lee, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, birdied the final two holes (and four of his last six) at The Vines Resort & Country Club to claim the title by a single stroke, in the process becoming the youngest winner in E Tour history (muscling aside 1971 Spanish Open champion Dale Hayes) and only the second amateur (behind Portugal’s Pablo Martin) to claim an official victory on the closest thing we have to a world tour. Lee now intends to remain an amateur at least through The Masters – at the cost of roughly $300,000 U.S. dollars this week alone –before beginning his self-proclaimed quest to “win more PGA Tour titles” than Tiger Woods.

And perhaps we should all cut him some slack on the apparent conceit in such comments; a native of Korea who moved to New Zealand at age eight, Lee willingly admits to being more nervous communicating with his second language before the media than on the golf course – a recipe which, combined with his youth, is bound to cause the occasional jackpot quote.

And besides, so landmark a win allows you to talk – at least a little.

Meanwhile, while one grows quickly tired of the endless “Young Guns” stories that appear whenever two first-time winners pop up on the PGA Tour’s West Coast swing, maybe – just maybe – we are actually beginning to see the first generation of players whose horizons have been shaped by the unmatched record (and self expectations) of Tiger Woods. Lee’s accomplishments (and obvious potential) are manifest, and it’s difficult to believe that Ishikawa, with two Japan Tour victories already under his belt, won’t see his stock continue to rise. But also highly relevant in this mix is Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy (already an E Tour winner – and regular contender – at age 19) and the often overlooked Seung-yul Noh, the 17-year-old Korean star who claimed his first Asian Tour victory at the ripe old age of 16. I am as skeptical of highly touted teenagers as anyone, but this group appears to be unlike any agglomeration of under-20 talent ever assembled.

They are, it seems, very much for real.

And then, at the other end of the spectrum, we have Fred Couples.

Now, Riviera, somewhat like Augusta National, is a layout whose emphasis on strategic course management tends to favor the more experienced man – but at age 49, Couple’s presence among the late contenders was still something of a surprise. Sadly, Boom Boom was only one shot – a shanked 7 iron at the 72nd – shy of a chance at a playoff, but the game he displayed in Los Angeles both electrified the partisan crowd and suggested a major presence on the Champions Tour once he turns 50 in October.

And then we have Phil Mickelson, a man raked over the coals for his lackluster 2009 start, and whose swing remains inconsistent enough that he did something decidedly rare last Saturday: he beat balls on the range after shooting a 62! But his palpable inconsistency aside, when you post rounds of 63 and 62 in the same event at Riviera, you must really go high in one of your other rounds not to win. And while Mickelson at least investigated such options with a pair of lackluster 72s on Friday and Sunday, in the end, he simply proved too talented to catch.