In a better sports world, Mac Bennett would have played high school hockey in his hometown and then gone off to college — just like his father, Jim, who went from Cranston East to Brown.

Instead, Mac went to boarding school at Hotchkiss and now intends to spend a year in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, playing in the U.S. Hockey League, before enrolling at the University of Michigan as a 20-year-old freshman in the fall of 2010.

In a better sports world, Peter Uihlein would have stayed home and continued to attend the Providence Country Day School, where he could have followed in the golfing footsteps of Billy Andrade, who went from PCD, to Wake Forest, to a long career on the PGA Tour.

Instead, Uihlein went to Florida at the tender age of 13 to attend David Leadbetter's golf academy.

Are Bennett and Uihlein better players as a result?

Almost certainly.

Uihlein twice was named national player of the year by the American Junior Golf Association and just finished his freshman year at Oklahoma State. The Cowboys were ranked No. 1 in the country before losing in the opening round of team match play at the NCAA championships to Georgia.

Bennett was recently selected in the third round of the NHL draft by the Montreal Canadiens.

Despite that, is it a better sports world that all but forces such promising athletes to leave home as teenagers in pursuit of sports success?

Not really.

"Believe me," Jim Bennett said, "I didn't want to send my 15-year-old son away to school. But, when it got right down to it, high school hockey in Rhode Island — and Massachusetts — has deteriorated to such a level that if you want to be seen by college coaches and pro scouts, you've got to go out of state."

That wasn't the case a generation ago, when Jim and his brothers were starring at Cranston East.

Curt Bennett went from Cranston East, to Brown, to a career in the NHL. Harvey went from Cranston East, to Boston College, to the NHL. Bill went right into pro hockey out of high school. Only John spent a year in prep school, attending Choate for a year after graduating from Cranston East before going on to Brown, and then to the WHA. The only reason John spent a year in prep school, Jim explained with a chuckle, was because he had been such a pain to have around the house as a little kid that their mother enrolled him early in kindergarten, and so he was only 17 when he finished high school.

Even though Andrade, and fellow PGA Tour players Brad Faxon, Brett Quigley, Patrick Sheehan and Brad Adamonis all played their high school golf in Rhode Island, Uihlein felt he'd have a better chance to become a pro if he went to Florida.

"I wanted to go somewhere the weather was warmer, play year-round, and try to compete with the best players in the world," he told the Journal's Paul Kenyon following a round at the prestigious Northeast Amateur at Wannamoisett last month.

And so, although barely a teenager, he went off to Bradenton, accompanied by his mother, Tina.

LPGA Tour pro Anna Grzebien, of Narragansett, had wanted to do the same thing when she was in high school. But her parents, Tom and Marnie, said no.

"Believe me," Marnie said, "the idea (of going to Leadbetter's academy) got kicked around here, because a lot of kids Anna was competing against were at that school. She pushed to go, because she felt she was losing a competitive edge.

"But I said: 'Too bad. It's not worth it. You can do this without special treatment. It's not worth sacrificing our family life.'

"I wanted my kids to have a normal upbringing — at home, with family."

Things couldn't have worked out better for Anna, who played high school golf at Narragansett, then went on to Duke, where she won the NCAA individual championship as a sophomore in 2005, and was instrumental in helping the Blue Devils win three straight team titles from 2005-07.

In retrospect, she said, she has no doubt her parents made the right decision.

"There's no better way to do it than the way I did it," Anna said. "I enjoyed high school, and got to spend those years with my family.

"I also think it made me more independent. Because a lot kids at those schools are with their coach every single day, they can't think for themselves sometimes. I've seen it out here on Tour — if something goes wrong, they go into panic mode. I've learned to make my own decisions, to do things on my own."

But, she added: "There's no one road to success."

It would be a better sports world if budding local stars didn't feel they had to hit the road to be successful.

"When we were in Montreal for the draft," Jim Bennett said, "I had a long conversation with Ron Wilson."

Wilson, now the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, led East Providence High to the state hockey championship before going on to become an all-American at Providence College.

"We talked," said Bennett, "about the rivalries we used to have in the days when he and his brothers were playing at East Providence, and my brothers and I were playing at Cranston East.

"We'd have battles with them, with Burrillville, La Salle, Mount St. Charles. It was great. I'd love to see it that way again." Unfortunately, it's unlikely ever to be that way again. Those days are long gone. It's a very different sports world now.

It may result in better players. But it's not a better world.

jdonalds @projo.com