Golf: Knight to help Lee

Danny Lee and caddie Anthony Knight have sealed a deal which can only enhance the young golf sensation's prospects when he turns professional next month.

Knight yesterday confirmed he would tote Lee's bag for the remainder of this year at least.

The reigning US amateur champion employed Knight for the first time at this month's New Zealand PGA Championship in Christchurch, when he tied for seventh.

Their partnership was unable to replicate that performance at the New Zealand Open, missing the second round last Friday by five shots after posting rounds of 71 and 77.

Lee, 18, has been tipped by many pundits for an extraordinary career, expectations which increased last month when he won the tri-sanctioned Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth.

That success has given him full playing rights in Europe, Asia and Australasia until the end of 2011 but he really wants to crack the big time in the United States.

He heads there next month for the Masters at Augusta National on April 9-12, where he will play the opening two rounds of the year's first major in the company of Tiger Woods.

Lee earned that honour when becoming the youngest player in history to win the US Amateur championship last August, displacing Woods from the record books in an event dating back to 1895.

Knight said he and Lee meshed well in the six rounds they worked together this month. Aside from Lee's ball striking, Knight - whose previous employers have included Frank Nobilo, Sergio Garcia and Aaron Baddeley, among others - said he had been particularly taken with Lee's composure off the course.

"I thought he handled himself very well, on and off the course," Knight said. "What he did in the Johnnie Walker Classic exposed him to a wider audience and the television cameras started following him more often.

"I was very impressed with how he handled everything."

Lee was known to have struck up a good relationship with Australian caddie Jason Hamilton, who was at his side for the Johnnie Walker Classic victory. Some of Lee's support team were leaning towards approaching Hamilton, now working for New Zealand left-hander Tim Wilkinson in the US, to see whether he would change bosses this season Stateside.

They were aware he had previously worked for a Korean and naturally thought he would be a good fit for the teenager.

Knight, 39, has caddied around the world for close to two decades, and said he was looking forward to helping Lee improve his allround game.

He described some critical comments of late passed about Lee's putting as being ill-informed, and said there was nothing that could not be fixed.

"It is just a small technical and confidence thing. A lot of people were struggling on the greens at the Open."

Knight said he would leave his Papamoa home next month, possibly in time for him to join Lee for the Masters and he would definitely be with the player when he competed as a professional for the first time, in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the PGA Tour on April 23-26.

- NZPA