IT seems almost impossible to believe that Carly Booth isn’t yet 25 years old. It feels as if the golfer from Comrie has been around for ever yet she will only celebrate her 25th birthday later this month. Despite her relative youth, she has already endured more ups and downs than many do in their entire career. The past few years have been particularly disappointing but her qualification last weekend for this summer’s US Women’s Open indicates that, finally, there are some positives signs for Booth.

The Scot’s journey to this point has been somewhat circuitous. Before she had even reached her teenage years, Booth was being touted as the next big thing in Scottish golf. At the age of just 11, she became Scotland’s youngest club champion, winning the title at Dunblane New; at age 14, she made her debut in a professional event and then at the age of 15, she became the youngest player to represent GB and Ireland at the Curtis Cup.

Booth’s initial forays into the professional ranks engendered much optimism, too. While still a teenager, she claimed her first win on the Ladies European Tour at the Ladies Scottish Open and she followed that up just a month later with another victory, this time at the Swiss Open and the talk was that it was almost inevitable that Booth would soon be on her way to winning major championships. And coupled with her supreme golfing ability were her blonde hair and athletic figure that the media loved, giving her a public profile that few of her fellow British pros enjoyed. The world, it seemed, was Booth’s oyster.

But, as almost every elite athlete knows only too well, sport rarely goes to plan. Over the past four seasons, Booth has managed to grab just two top-10 finishes on the Ladies European Tour, with her world ranking dropping outside the top 400.

There were a number of criticisms directed towards Booth. Some said that she was concentrating more on increasing her profile than on her golf game and it’s hard to disagree entirely with that. She took part in a significant number of photo shoots including, most notably, posing naked for ESPN’s body edition issue of their magazine. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that but to do quite so many eye-catching appearances before she had established herself on the Tour could certainly considered be naïve.

But her slump can surely also, at least partially, be attributed to her youth. She was still incredibly young and with the transition from amateur to senior player notoriously tricky even for those who are considerably older than Booth was, it seemed at least a little harsh that she was being somewhat written off.

Whatever the reasons for her poor form though, it would have been all too easy for Booth to have thought, ‘stuff this, I’m off’. She could have chucked it in, traded on her looks and media popularity and made a decent living for herself. But, to her credit, she stuck at it, with her persistence looking to have finally paid off. This year has been hugely promising for the Scot; while it is still early days, she is currently the top Scot in the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit in 19th position with her qualification for the Women’s US Open, which begins in just over a month’s time, a timely boost.

It will be interesting to see if this is just another short period of good form for Booth or if this is something more sustainable. Judging from her interviews – she still says that her target is to reach No.1 in the world – the belief is still there but it is impossible to judge if that is merely a show of bravado or else a deeply held conviction because four seasons of under-par performances will surely, make at least a few dents in one’s confidence.

But Booth’s travails, more than anything, highlight why, in Scotland in particular, we should not rush to make premature pronouncements about a young athlete's potential for greatness. All too often, the pressure that comes with that tag is crushing. Booth’s lack of progress over the past four years is unlikely to be entirely attributable to the pressure heaped upon her shoulders but it can’t have helped. Some of that was self-inflicted, some was imposed by outside forces but Scotland has been so desperate for a young golfing prodigy to emerge, it is understandable that everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

But the danger is that by billing a pre-teen as the next big thing, the odds are they will disappoint. There will, of course, be some that live up to the hype but for each one of those who do fulfill their potential, there will be 10, at least, who don’t. If Booth has the longevity of her compatriot Catriona Matthew, she will have two decades or more left in her. It remains to be seen if she can fulfill her goal of reaching world No.1. If she can, it will be some achievement. But Booth’s journey should send a cautionary note to us all about picking out a kid and calling him or her ‘the next big thing’. Booth may still make it to the big-time in the golfing world. But it will be no thanks to the expectation placed on her at the age of 11.