Prior to the phenomenal round of 65 last Thursday that put 20-year-old Tom Lewis in a tie for the lead in the Open Championship, you had to go back to 1968 for the last time an amateur had been atop the leaderboard in the oldest major championship in golf.
That fact alone is an indication of the quite spectacular performance Lewis put in during that opening round at Royal St George's and, with that in mind, the ensuing coverage of him in the national media was both gushing in its praise and very well deserved.
But the next three days, which never saw Lewis recapture that first round spark but did still see him go on to claim the prestigious silver medal as the tournament's low amateur, tempered the early excitement somewhat.
His eventual finish in a tie for 30th (nine-over) was hardly spectacular - in fact you have to go back to 2007 and a young player by the name of Rory McIlroy (T-42nd) to find a silver medal winner who actually finished lower down the field.
To put it into further perspective, in the intervening years Chris Wood (2008) managed to finish in the top five as an amateur, while last year Asian teenager Jin Jeong breezed into the top 15.
Lewis's efforts, then, were ultimately not all that spectacular (had his rounds been reversed, he wouldn't have even made the cut). And it is that which brings us on to a second concern - was the youngster from Welwyn Garden City playing fast and loose with the amateur rules of golf?
After all, few who watched him over all four days could escape the prominent Ping branding on his cap and Hugo Boss emblems on his clothing. While on the surface there is nothing wrong with that (players do need to wear clothes, after all, and Ping have long worked closely with the English Golf Union, that looks after top young amateurs), the fact both are set to sponsor him when, not if, he turns pro gives a hint to potential impropriety.
He won't just be sponsored when he turns professional, he'll be rewarded handsomely for the privilege. There's evidently a reason they call it the 'paid ranks'.
"A comfortable six-figures - more if he makes his European Tour card straight away,'' was how a man described as 'one of the game's leading deal-makers' estimated Lewis's immediate sponsorship earnings to The Guardian when he leaves amateurism for good. "If he doesn't, he will have to go to tour school or try his luck on the Challenge tour, where life is a bit tougher."
That's a lot of money to throw at a player who could miss the cut in all of his professional events (he is expected to make the switch in September and try to earn his card by winning enough money over the final part of the season, much as McIlroy did three years ago) and never really be heard from again.
It's less money, however, if it is partially inflated to reward him retroactively for the exposure he gave to his brands while still an amateur. Say, for example, by doing well at the Open Championship.
But rules on amateur status dictate that such players cannot profit from their playing (beyond prizes, cash or otherwise, of less than £500). That's why you occasionally hear stories about men - or even former footballing greats - turning professional in order to claim cars they won for hole-in-ones in pro-am events.
The Royal & Ancient, organisers of the Open, have clear rules on the matter of amateur status. The R&A emphasises the importance of the distinction from professionals in order to "keep the amateur game as free as possible from the abuses that may follow from uncontrolled sponsorship and financial incentive. It is considered necessary to safeguard amateur golf, which is largely self-regulating with regard to the rules of play and handicapping, so that it can be fully enjoyed by all amateur golfers."
Whether Lewis has broken such rules by brazenly promoting certain brands he is set to sign sponsorship deals with is open to debate (but, really, who buys a week's worth of outfits from the same designer?). The fact he already has picked an agency to represent his future interests - IMG, after an interview process completed six months ago in Dubai - hints that commercial interests aren't exactly at the back of his and his advisors' minds.
It also suggests further un-amateur actions. After all, R&A rule 2-1(c) on amateur status makes clear eligible players must not "take any action for the purpose of becoming a professional golfer", including "entering into a written or oral agreement, directly or indirectly, with a professional agent or sponsor".
At the very least, it all leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
At the worst, well, perhaps he should never have been handed the silver medal in the first place.
Indeed, it's a suitably wonderful irony that the man Lewis beat to the silver medal, American Peter Uihlein, is son of the very wealthy chief executive of Acushnet - one of the biggest golf companies in the world. Yet, bar a modest Titleist cap, Uihlein has never shown overt branding of Acushnet properties either at the Open or his appearances at this year's Masters and US Open.
How times have changed. The last amateur to win the Open Championship was the legendary Bobby Jones, at Royal Liverpool way back in 1930. It was one of all four majors the American claimed in that year (back then the US and Amateur Championships completed the 'grand slam' alongside the US Open), arguably the most impressive feat in the history of the game.
Jones was an amateur in the truest sense of the word, in an age where the tide was slowly turning in favour of the professional game (the USPGA and Masters would replace the two Amateur Championships as majors over the course of the next decade). He played golf for sport and worked for a living - he studied for two degrees (one in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, then another in English from Harvard) before going on to pass the bar (and not the type new Open champion Darren Clarke has vast experience of) and practise the law after he retired from golf at 28.
You can't halt the passage of time, however, so understandably the upper echelons of the amateur game are not filled with similar characters eighty years later. Talented young English players are taken under the wing of the EGU early in their teens and experience many benefits; from extensive free coaching to all-expenses paid flights and accommodation in order to play at high-profile amateur events around the world.
That's a world away from how even some of the current crop of professionals came into the game. Take Lee Westwood, for example, perhaps the first to sound any notes of caution about Lewis's performance. When asked on Thursday whether the 20-year-old's tournament-leading effort was a surprise, the world No. 2 caught the reporter out with his answer.
"Not really. The state of amateur golf now, the really good ones, they're not amateurs in the sense of when I was an amateur," Westwood noted. "They've played professional tournaments, and they've travelled the world and experienced difficult golf courses. They're just not amateurs anymore; they're semi-professional.
"It's a misleading term. I doubt any of them have got jobs."
Lewis left school at 16 and has been able to dedicate himself to a future as a professional golfer ever since. It's a miracle, or maybe just extremely curious, that he hasn't at any point actually had to turn professional in order to try and find the finance to continue to pursue his dreams through what has effectively been four years of unemployment.
Recently, he was offered a place in this week's European tour event, the Nordea Masters. However, the EGU ordered that he be in Aberdeen for a pre-Walker Cup get together instead.
When given that news, Lewis openly admitted his immediate reaction was to offer to pay the EGU's lost costs in order to play in Scandinavia instead.
"I told Nigel [Edwards], the captain, I got into Scandinavia, and I thought he would be like, 'Well played, but I won't be able to make it'," Lewis recalled. "I was like, just send me the bill for whatever I've cost you in flights or whatever, and he just said that he really needed me there.
"Those are the things that we need to do as an amateur. It's a shame, obviously."
Merely having the money to pay for some wasted flights does not make Lewis guilty of any impropriety. His father is a club professional in his own right, which may or may not give him the resources to finance his son's burgeoning career out of his own pocket.
But the tale further suggests that Lewis is far more serious about his future as a professional than his present as an amateur. Compare that with an unheralded professional in the Open field, Kent 26-year-old Andy Smith, who has struggled to make progress in his own career due to a lack of funding.
An 81 and 73, hampered by a wrist injury, may have seen Smith miss the cut, but the exposure at least helped him pick up some sponsorship and will enable him return to satellite tour action in the hope of playing his way into the big leagues. What is more, a practice round with Rory Sabbatini saw him strike up a rapport that will see the South African pay for him to go to the US and try PGA Tour Qualifying School, so impressed was he by Smith's ability.
"I've loved every minute of [the Open]," Smith said on Friday. "It really has changed my life because I didn't have any sponsorship and now I have clothing, clubs and some minor sponsors. Every little helps and I'm just going to keep pushing."
That's the struggle of a professional golfer, struggles the likes of Westwood and Ian Poulter know very well.
Lewis, however, can seemingly just say the word and he will be presented with more money than he will probably know what to do with. That's one pot soon to be available to him, while in the meantime he seemingly has another that he can dip in and out of to pay for wasted flights and other unforeseen expenditures.
That may just be good fortune on his part. But there is potentially a serious case to answer if those pots of money are one and the same.
The agency, the sponsorship, the tournament invites - all of that comes despite an amateur record that doesn't match up to many previous silver medal winners (albeit his recent Open adventure and a prior play-off defeat in a mediocre professional event in Australia last year) and an uphill task to earn his European Tour card and avoid what could easily be a quick slide into oblivion (look up the 1995 silver medal winner and Tiger Woods vanquisher, Gordon Sherry, for a crash course on what lies down that path).
But this isn't about whether or not Lewis will be a good or successful professional. It's whether he was an amateur in the spirit of golf's rules.
The suspicion, unfortunately, is that he was not.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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