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Where EAST meets the Northwest
EASTERN CONTINGENT. This year’s Masters golf tournament, won by unknown South African Charl Schwartzel, featured returners Y.E. Yang (left photo) and K.J. Choi (right photo), as well as first-time appearances by several Asian and Asian-American golfers. (AP Photos/Matt Slocum)
From The Asian Reporter, V21, #09 (May 2, 2011), page 9.
2011 Masters highlights Asian golfers old and new
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
This year’s Masters golf tournament, won by unknown South African Charl Schwartzel, featured plenty of new faces, including first-time appearances by eight different Asian and Asian-American golfers. While none of the eastern contingent cracked the top five, three finished in the top 20 and several others continue to make inroads into the PGA.
Last year’s Masters featured finishes in the top 10 from Asian American Anthony Kim and South Koreans Y.E. Yang and K.J. Choi. These three all received 2011 Masters invites, but Kim missed the cut by a stroke after carding a one-over 73 in both of the first two rounds. Yang and Choi, on the other hand, finished atop all of the Asian and Asian-American golfers.
Yong-eun Yang began the first day by shooting five under par, two off Rory McIlroy’s lead. If he hadn’t bogeyed on 17 and 18, Yang would have tied the veteran from Northern Ireland, but he later admitted to pressing himself too much. Yang led briefly on Friday after shooting a birdie on the eighth hole, but slipped back with bogeys on the next two. His confidence eroded, Yang couldn’t convert birdie putts on four of his next five holes, and then he three-putted both 16 and 18. Though he shot a one-over on both Saturday and Sunday, Yang’s first-day, five-stroke cushion landed him in a tie for 20th place at the end of the tournament.
Tied with Yang was Ryo Ishikawa, Japan’s "Bashful Prince," who had pledged to donate his winnings to his quake-torn homeland. Though Ishikawa shot well to start the first day, he, too, had trouble on the back nine, bogeying three holes to end at one-under. Shooting another 71 on Friday helped Ishikawa make his first Masters cut, and he resolved to play more aggressively over the weekend.
This attitude paid early dividends, as the Prince picked up two birdies on Saturday’s front nine, including an impressive deuce on the par-three sixth hole, but three bogeys down the stretch pushed him to one-over for the round. Ishikawa’s up-and-down Sunday began with an eagle on two, a double-bogey on four, and then three birdies on the back nine.
"It’s the best finish I can think of," Ishikawa said later. "I only left one putt short all day."
His strong finish brought more than $90,000 to Japanese disaster victims and showed how well Japan’s most popular and most promising young golfer performs under pressure.
Several other Asian golfers had good tournaments, including Asian Amateur champ Hideki Matsuyama, Japan’s first amateur to appear at the Masters. Wondering whether he could concentrate at the Masters after his hometown of Sendai was devastated by the March tsunami, the 19-year-old showed maturity and wisdom in choosing to play.
He dazzled the crowd with five birdies on Saturday, carding a 68 before losing focus on the final day. Matsuyama flagged along with the leaders, bogeying six holes, including four of the final nine; only four birdies saved him from a lower finish. Still, tied for 27th, he won the tournament’s silver cup for the best amateur finish — not bad for a kid still in high school.
Also in his first Masters after ending last year 39th on the world money list, Kyung-tae Kim of South Korea finished the tournament well after a nervous debut. Kim shot par for the tournament’s first 11 holes, then found his stride with four birdies over the next five holes, though a double-bogey on 15 gave back half those gains. After a tough Friday and Saturday, Kim redeemed himself with a great back nine on the final day, reeling off four straight birdies on 12 through 15 to finish in a tie for 44th place.
Kim’s countryman K.J. Choi had the best Asian finish at the Masters, however. He started the first day hot with a five-under 67, two strokes off McIlroy, then kept pace with the field throughout. He grabbed the lead briefly Friday, then slipped in and out of trouble before heading into the final day just three shots off the lead. He couldn’t score on any of the first six holes Sunday, but then he ripped off two birdies on the front nine, finally conquering the 11th by shooting par on a hole he’d bogeyed all week.
In the meantime, McIlroy was beginning his epic collapse. After bogeying just one hole in the first two rounds, he began to show some cracks with two bogeys on Saturday. On Sunday, McIlroy bogeyed twice more on the front nine before self-destructing after the turn, carding a triple bogey on the 10th hole, a double bogey on 12, and bogeys on both 11 and 15.
This left the field wide open for Choi, who just couldn’t put it together. Tied for the lead after 11, Choi fell back with a bogey on 13. A great approach shot on 15 led to a birdie, but he bogeyed 17 and flubbed a par save on the final hole. After his approach shot found a bunker, Choi chipped out beautifully, clanking the shot against the 18th pin, but he missed the six-foot putt, sliding below Angel Cabrera into an tie for eighth place.
Despite the lack of finishers in the top five, Choi’s continued excellence and the performances of younger golfers like Ishikawa, Kim, and Matsuyama leave Asian golf fans with plenty to look forward to in the future. This optimism is bolstered by the Masters debuts of golfers like Korean American Lion Kim, India’s Arjun Atwal, U.S. Amateur runner-up David Chung, Japan’s Hiroyuki Fujita, and British Amateur Open winner Jin Jeong from South Korean. For Asian players, Masters invitations are no longer made in the name of international diversity, but on talent, and they should continue to live up to the pressure of those expectations.