Hampshire golf has never been stronger - with home-grown hero Justin Rose leading the way. It's hard to believe that the tiny, skinny kid who took his first swing of a golf club on the nine-hole course at Hartley Wintney when he was just five is now number 37 in the world. And he's still just 22.

He aspired to become England number one during 2002, which, Rose will remind you with an ironic smile, was the most meaningful year of his life - and not always for the best reasons.

The year began on a high with his first European Tour victory in the Dunhill Championship in Johannesburg, the town of his birth, last January.

By the time the year had run half-circle, Rose had won the Nashua Masters on South Africa's Sunshine Tour, the Crown Masters in Japan, and the British Masters on the Marquiss Course at Woburn, his first professional win on home soil.

"That one was really special because my parents were there to see it," said Rose.

He was particularly anxious to win for his dad, Ken, who had done more than anyone to mould the natural talent his son had shown in those far-off days at Hartley Wintney, then the North Hants Club, near the family home in Fleet.

His father lost a two-year battle against leukaemia last September and, after his death, Rose was devastated and found it difficult to refocus on his golf.

"We golfers all get screwed up about missing cuts and things, but it's nothing when put into perspective of what happened to my dad."

As he grieved, Rose settled on the laurels of a momentous 2002 in which one of his best performances - his four wins aside - was taking fifth place in the WGC NEC Invitational in Seattle, which involves the very best players in the world.

Rose graduated through the junior coaching ranks in Hampshire, run with passion and meticulous planning by the county junior manager Tommy Flinn.

It is from there that the next Justin Rose will emerge but, as Flinn will tell you, "that kind of talent doesn't come along every day".

Last time Hampshire got really excited about a young golfing talent was Steve Richardson back in 1989.

After winning the English championship in that year, the strong, broad-shouldered youngster from Lee-on-the-Solent turned professional and, just three events into his first full season on the European Tour in 1991, he had won the Girona Open and the Portuguese Open.

He finished that year in the Ryder Cup team at Kiowa Island.

Two years down the line, Richardson won the German Masters but, with ever-improving standards on the European Tour, the big-hitting Hampshire ace lost his way.

Rose has lit the Hampshire beacon again and, this year, the county will have a record three players on the European Tour, with Richard Bland, from Stoneham, and Matt Blackey, from Hayling Island, joining forces with their former county teammate.

All three have come up through the county sides, the boys, the colts and the full county teams. Blackey and Rose played together in the first (and last) Hampshire team to win the English County Championship in 1996.

Standards within Hampshire are still high.

They have won the South-East League title three years in succession and were runners-up to the mighty Yorkshire side in the English Championship only last September.

They maintain their high standards because the grass roots of the game in Hampshire are strong. Under the eyes of Flinn and his right-hand man, George Jackson, the most promising of the county's players are separated into four geographical coaching locations.

At the top of the coaching pyramid is the county centre of excellence, established at the Marriott Meon Valley Golf and Country Club, where the youngsters are coached by a panel of Hampshire club professionals. They learn not only how to play better, but to improve the level of their fitness through a better diet.

They learn better course management and even study the art of sports psychology in their once-a-month get-togethers at The Valley.

As more and more teenagers aspire to single-figure handicaps, Hampshire have become recognised as one of the premier junior sides countrywide, going desperately close to winning the national title two years ago.

It's from that group that the next Rose could come.

Bland, who was beaten in a play-off for the Murphy's Irish Open last July, is a potential winner on the European Tour this year. Blackey, who now lives next door to his old Hampshire teammate in Southampton, won two events on the Challenge Tour last year, regarded as Europe's second division of golf.

Lower down the age scale, two of the most promising members of the Hampshire senior squad, Shaun Justice, from Andover, and David Butwell, from Warsash, are off to the United States this year for golfing scholarships.

They are not easy to attain and two of the UK's brightest young talents, Luke Donald and Paul Casey, have just come off the high-quality collegiate circuit in the USA.

Both Justice and Butwell will stay in the States for four years but will graduate, hopefully, with the ability to go on and secure their tournament cards, whether on the US PGA Tour or the European Tour.

Back home in Southampton, two young Stoneham golfers, David Porter and Darren Henley, will look to go to tour school at the end of the year.

Porter has always been seen as the young man most likely to follow in Rose's footsteps. He won England's two major junior championships, the Carris and MacGregor Trophies, when he was just 16.

One of England's most capped boys and junior golfers, Porter, who is now 19, must take the biggest step of all into the senior international ranks.

If he can do that this year and restore some of the confidence that slipped away in 2002, he could indeed take Hampshire's total to four on the European Tour.

Twice Hampshire champion, Henley will play the UK-based EuroProTour this summer, looking to emulate Brokenhurst Manor's Martin Le Mesurier, whose fourth place on the EuroProTour rankings in 2002, have helped him move up on to Challenge Tour this year.

There's so much talent bubbling under in the county.

And Rose has been the inspiration to the current crop of hopefuls.

Darren Henley summed it up when he said: "When we see what Justin has achieved, it gives us all confidence.

"He has shown the lads who play in the county side that anything is possible."