Being the golfer that I am (or perhaps try to be), a couple of weekends ago I had the pleasure of watching on T.V. with great interest the final Sunday round of the Masters tournament. Aside from being possibly one of the greatest Masters finishes ever, the tournament was noteworthy for the very strong and timely performance given by first year amateur player Hideki Matsuyama. Matsuyama is a sophomore student at Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai. He made the difficult decision to fly to the U.S. to play in the Masters not long after the terrible disaster hit Japan.
His performance was first rate, as he was the only amateur golfer to make the cut, thus assuring him of winning the Silver Trophy, given to the low amateur finisher each year. He birdied the final hole on the last day, giving him a 1 under par finish for the tournament on the very demanding Augusta National layout. During the post tournament televised awards presentation, he was obviously a very fine young man who represented Japan, and the Tohoku region incredibly well. We obviously have not heard the end of Matsuyama-san in the golfing world. Here is a video of his beautiful and powerful swing during one of the Masters practice rounds.
Finally I would just like to mention we are seeing many great young Japanese golfers finding success in our U.S. tour. Most notably recently one of the big names is of course Ryo Ishikawa. I want to say how impressed I was to hear that Ishikawa-san has donated ALL of his 2011 Tour earnings towards the Japan Earthquake/Tsunami relief. How impressive!!
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