When Zhang Lianwei became the first Chinese player to win a European Tour event in 2003, 14-year-old Kuang Yang hadn't even been born.
The pair, part of a record 45 home-grown players in this week's 25th Volvo China Open, illustrate just how far golf has come in the world's most populous nation.
Veteran Zhang, who turned 54 on Thursday, only started playing when he was 20 because golf, then deemed a bourgeois pursuit, was banned in China under Mao Zedong.
Zhang, the only man to have played in all 25 editions of the China Open, winning it in 2003, is now the daddy of Chinese pro golf, the precursor of a wave of young Chinese players hoping to make it big.
Precocious amateur Kuang, 40 years his junior, is just one of a horde of teenagers tearing up Chinese fairways -- and he made an impressive debut with a first-round one-under par 71 on Thursday.
"It's a different era and a different environment for these kids coming through now," a smiling Zhang told AFP after receiving a huge birthday cake from organisers at the end of his opening round.
"I'm not jealous of the opportunities they have now," added Zhang, who was unable to turn professional until 1995, when he was 30 years old.
"They have a better chance to learn the game, but they have much tougher competition than I did. When I began there was no professional golf in China."
"But I had to wait a very long time to turn professional. It took 10 years because of procedures with the China Golf Association and the government." -
'Very impressive' -
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"The number of players we see coming through the ranks on the European Tour has been very impressive and now we see them playing PGA Tour and a lot on the Asian Tour."
- School first, golf second -
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"I didn't have a lot of time to practise this week as I have just finished my mid-term exams," said Kuang, who is naturally left-handed but plays right-handed. "School is still my main focus."