At last year’s ShopRite LPGA Classic, Ai Miyazato turned 25 years old and celebratedin style, with her fourth victory of the season and No. 1 in the Rolex Ranking.
“Everything happened in that week,” Miyazato said. “I remember every single moment.”
Miyazato fell short of ending the season No. 1 or earning the Rolex Player of the Year honor. She spent the offseason working out ways to deal with the pressure that comes with being at the pinnacle of her sport. Miyazato spent 11 weeks at the top last season.
No one, however, could prepare Miyazato for the kind of pressure that fell upon her small frame. A magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that swept across much of northern Japan, killing more than 15,000, and left its mark on the nation’s psyche.
“Last year, I was able to purely focus on my game alone,” Miyazato said Wednesday by phone. “But this year, due to the earthquake, I haven’t been able to do so . . . I wanted to deliver good news to Japan.”
Statistically speaking, that pressure seems to have manifested itself on the greens. Last year, Miyazato won five times and was first in GIR putting average at 1.73 and T-2 in putting average at 28.67 putts per round. This year, she’s 66th in GIR putts and 69th in putting average.
“Overall, I think it’s just because I haven’t been able to concentrate on my game,” she said.
Miyazato went to school in Sendai, the northeast city that was hit particularly hard by quake and tsunami. Thankfully, her close friends and relatives throughout Japan survived the devastation. Still, Miyazato finds it difficult to watch the news, saying it has a “negative impact” on how she goes about life.
Miyazato, ranked seventh, has played in six LPGA events in 2011 and hasn’t finished higher than a tie for 14th in stroke play. She did advance to the quarterfinals of the Sybase Match Play, and said she’s finally getting her confidence back.
She also played twice on the Japan LPGA, missing the cut at the Daikin Orchid Ladies and finishing T-49 at the World Ladies Championship. The missed cut at the Daikin Orchid was her first MC in Japan since 2004.
“The match play is a different style of play, only focused on one shot at a time,” she said. “That’s what I was able to do last year. I was missing that this year.”
Miyazato skipped the State Farm Classic to compete in Japan’s Suntory Ladies. Suntory is one of her sponsors.
