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Japan's golf warriors rise to the occasion
Maruyama makes fifth consecutive start in Masters
Posted: Saturday April 06, 2002 8:26 PM
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Shigeki Maruyama hits a tee shot during March's Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Maruyama said it was his dream since he started as a golfer to play in the Masters. Michael Holahan
The Augusta Chronicle |
By Scott Michaux
The Augusta Chronicle
By the time the green jacket is presented on Masters Sunday, the sun will not have risen in Japan.
Japanese Standard Time is about 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. But the Masters Tournament is not lost in the time difference or the translation.
In the eyes of the Japanese, the Masters is flat-out the coolest thing in golf.
Certainly Shigeki Maruyama thinks so. Especially after four consecutive years of not having to stay up in the wee hours of the morning to watch the Masters live on television. Maruyama lives it instead.
"It's always been my dream to play at Augusta since the first time I started playing golf," Maruyama said through his translator, Robert Turner. "That's really my one goal that I had, to qualify for the Masters Tournament. To be able to play there is an honor."
Maruyama watched his first Masters on television at age 9, when he was just learning to play. The next year, it made a larger impression on him when he watched Tom Watson win a 1981 duel over Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus.
"That's when I really started getting serious about golf," Maruyama said.
Golf is taken very seriously in Japan, where courses are scarce and pilgrimages to play American courses are sometimes more affordable and always more available than a tee time at the local links.
The Augusta National is the Holy Grail. The Masters ranks as one of the top imported sporting events of the season in Japan, on the level of the World Series or the Olympics.
The infatuation began in 1973, when Masashi "Jumbo" Ozaki finished eighth in the first Masters Tournament broadcast on tape-delay in Japan. By 1976, when Ozaki had been joined by Isao Aoki as Japan's premiere golfing stars, the Japanese were receiving live broadcasts from Amen Corner.
Ozaki (19 Masters from 1972-2000), Aoki (14, 1974-88) and Tsuneyuki "Tommy" Nakajima (11, 1978-95) put the Masters at the forefront of the Japanese consciousness. More than any of the other major championships, the Masters' invitation policy was welcoming to foreign players.
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Shingo Katayama shot 4-over-par 292 during his Masters debut in 2001. Michael Holahan
The Augusta Chronicle |
"Back when I was little the Masters was really the only tournament that invited players from all the world, and Japanese players could play in it," Maruyama said. "That's why it was a dream, because it was attainable."
Now a new generation of Japanese stars are becoming regular faces on the PGA Tour. Maruyama became the first player from Japan to win a PGA Tour event on the U.S. mainland when he defeated Augusta's Charles Howell in a sudden-death playoff at the Greater Milwaukee Open this past year.
"For me to be able to win here on this tour was a dream come true," he said.
Other Japanese golfers are flirting with fulfilling that same dream.
Toshi Izawa, making his first Masters appearance last season, fired three rounds under par to finish fourth, the best finish by a Japanese player since Nakajima tied Ozaki's record with an eighth-place showing in 1986.
Shingo Katayama finished tied for 40th in his Masters debut before becoming the darling of the 2001 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club with his riveting smile and cowboy-style hat.
Toru Taniguchi, who will make his Masters debut in 2002, reached the semifinals of the 2001 WGC Match Play, tied for fifth at the Memorial and contended in this year's Nissan Open at Riviera.
Maruyama, making his fifth straight Masters appearance, is the most familiar of the rising sons of Japanese golf. He burst into the spotlight with a winning smile and a 5-0 record for the World team at the 1998 Presidents Cup. His match-play reputation grew with three straight quarterfinal appearances in the WGC Match Play.
In his first season as a PGA Tour regular in 2000, Maruyama became the only Japanese player to top $1 million in earnings. He matched that feat in 2001.
The only thing missing is a major breakthrough, which the performances of Izawa and Katayama last season proved is drawing closer. As other Japanese players start to follow the example of Maruyama and Naomichi "Joe" Ozaki and play regularly on the American tour, the potential for that breakthrough grows.
"It may happen because more and more Japanese players are starting to play more overseas," Maruyama said. "The more experience we get and the more we get accustomed to playing golf here in the United States, the more chance we get of winning a major some day."
If that happened to come at the Masters, what would that mean to a Japanese player?
"You'd win national awards in Japan and it would be a time of great celebration," Maruyama said.
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