As you no doubt have seen and heard this week, an extremely talented 17 year old is playing his PGA tour debut at The Northern Trust Open. Ryo Ishikawa is a teen golf phenom from Japan who has just begun his second stretch of golf in the States. He played here in 2007 in the Junior World Championship where he finished 23rd. So in honor of this superb young talent I’m going to throw around some interesting facts you might not know thanks to the wonderful PGATOUR.com.
This budding young star is the second youngest golfer to be invited to Augusta ever; second only to Tommy Jacobs in 1952. His following, like many other asian players is absolutely enormous in Japan. His winnings are estimated around $1.1 million dollars, the youngest player ever to reach that milestone. While we are talking money, he also has an estimated $10 million dollars in endorsement deals. How does that make you feel about your life at 17? Yeah me too…
Ryo is currently +1 in the second round, and +3 overall through 27, which is good for T111. Unfortunately for Ryo the cut is being projected around -1. He still has about 9 holes left to get some birdies in, but he is going to have to focus. For what it is worth his game seems quite solid, especially for a 17 year old. The assestment of his game from many commentators this week is that he definitely has the mindset to be a winner on the PGA Tour though he lacks the experience to get the job done just yet. Maybe with the help of his million dollar driver, he can continue to play some outstanding golf at the Transitions Champion and the Arnold Palmer Invitational(where he received sponsor exemptions), before he gears up for his Masters debut in April. Best of luck to this great young player.
April 7, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I think the Ryo Ishikawa story is particularly interesting. He plays Yonex golf clubs, and they’ve clearly invested a lot of time and money in the guy. They’ve made commercials and stuff, I think mostly in Japanese. Yonex is a Japanese company, so I guess it makes sense that they’d want to sponsor him. It’s kind of a gamble to put so much money into a guy and hope he lives up to expectations–especially someone so young.
One sad thing about it is that Phil Mickelson also played Yonex clubs when he started out. I can only imagine what their market share might be if Mickelson stuck with them. It’s hard to say whether Mickelson genuinely likes Callaway more than Yonex, or whether they just pay him more. I suspect that Callaway is able to pay more, and a smaller company like Yonex will just have trouble keeping a big name.
Sorry for the lack of brevity.
Bill
April 7, 2009 at 10:57 pm
i htink mickelson likes callaway because they let him do whatever he wants and will put out a bunch of different products just to make him happy. that and the money.
but all these pros have clubs that are nothing like we find in stores, so it doesn’t matter. phil’s clubs would be identical if he were still with titleist or with taylor made or nike.
thanks for stopping by.
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