Matteo Manassero will turn professional after he plays as the youngest ever competitor at the Masters next month.
The Italian 16-year-old, currently the holder of the title of British amateur champion, will make his professional bow in his homeland at the Italian Open in Turin on May - less than a month after he turns 17 on April 19.
The youngster already has Major experience after playing in the Open last July and finishing in a magnificent 17th in doing so. He was only one off the record shot haul of an Open amateur at Turnberry and has now confirmed at a golf show in his home town Verona that he will be making the upward move.
Manassero has already made the halfway cut in five out of six appearances on the European Tour and is to be allowed seven invitations to events to in a bid to avoid having to participate in the qualifying school at the end of the season.
He will join fellow teenagers Koreans An Byeong-hun, who is the United States amateur champion, and Han Chang-won, both of whom are 18, in the Maters field.
A third 18-year-old, the already much-heralded Ryo Ishikawa of Japan who is - of course - already in the world's top 50, makes up the count of four teenagers set to tackle the course at Augusta National.