Better than Pokemon? Maybe. Better than Tiger? Hold that Ryo.
Well, Ryo Ishikawa may in fact be on the way to Tiger-dom, as the Japanese media contend. The 15 year-old won the Japan Golf Tour’s Munsingwear Open KSB Cup back in May, making him the only teenager to ever win on the Japan Tour, besting the youngest age mark set by Seve Ballesteros’ 1977 win at 20 years-old.
In winning that tournament, he’s become a Japanese super-hero of Pokemon status. This week he’s in the States playing in the Callaway Junior Golf Championship at the South Course of Torrey Pines and the normally reserved Japanese media — har, har — have descended upon La Jolla in droves like nobody has seen before. From the San Diego Tribune:
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Junior World media coordinator Rick Schloss. “There’s not this many people here for one guy, even Tiger, at the Buick Invitational. And this is just a practice round.”
“He is the chosen star of today, Japan is a very fad-and hype-based country. If you look at fashion, everybody is buying Abercrombie & Fitch. It’s the same in the media. When they say cover this guy, they are serious about it.” [SOURCE]
Japanese ‘fad and hype’ based? Blaspheme! I bet he’s gonna say the Japanese like photography too!
