Ryo Ishikawa, once golf’s next big thing, is finally back at a major championship

Ishikawa’s presence on a golf course, especially at a major championship, once would have drawn hordes of media members — most, but not all, Japanese. He was going to be the Japanese star to eclipse the likes of Isao Aoki and Masashi “Jumbo” Osaki and finally win a major championship. Instead, Thursday will mark his first appearance in a major since 2015, when he played in the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay and missed the cut.

Ten years ago at Pebble Beach, the U.S. Golf Association, which likes to create quirky threesomes on the first two days of the Open, paired Ishikawa, then 18, with 21-year-old Rory McIlroy and 60-year-old Tom Watson. To say the grouping drew a crowd inside and outside the ropes is like saying Watson had a pretty good career.

I walked with the group during Friday’s second round, thinking it might be Watson’s last in a U.S. Open. Plus, the notion of Watson playing the golf course where he had won his only Open with two rising stars whose combined age was 21 years younger than his had a romantic element that made the walk on a beautiful morning impossible to resist.

Ishikawa was by then a star in Japan. He had won on the Japanese tour as an amateur at 15 and was the Japanese tour’s leading money winner in 2009 — the year he turned 18. His fourth win that year, shortly after his birthday in September, made him the youngest player in history to crack the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

He was still on the rise when he got to Pebble Beach. In Thursday’s first round, he shot a 1-under-par 70, which put him on the leader board, one shot behind the three leaders who shot 69s. McIlroy shot a 75 the first day and Watson a 78.

Fans were everywhere Friday, jamming against the ropes to see the three players. Inside the ropes, the battle for space among those with media credentials was almost as intense as the golf. Some came to see Watson, some McIroy and hundreds to see Ishikawa.

Dressed in bubble-gum pink, Ishikawa disappointed no one, shooting an even-par 71. Watson also shot a 71 to make the cut. McIlroy shot a 77 and went home. Ishikawa though, was the star that day.

“He sure doesn’t behave like he’s 18,” Watson said. “He’s remarkably mature in the way he plays and in the way he handles all this.” Watson paused to wave a hand at the media swarming Ishikawa behind the 18th green and smiled. “I’d like to have his future.”

Ishikawa did his post-round podium interview in English. When I was able to get a few minutes with him, I brought a Japanese colleague to interpret, figuring he would be more comfortable. Ishikawa shook his head and said: “No, I’d rather speak in English. I need the practice.”

Not surprisingly, he dropped back on the weekend, slipping from a tie for second on Friday (with a group that included Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els) to a tie for 33rd on Sunday evening. By year’s end, though, he was ranked 30th in the world. Shortly after the devastating Tohoku earthquake in March 2011, he announced he was going to donate all his earnings for the rest of the year to relief efforts. In 2012 — still only 21 — he finished second in Puerto Rico to earn full-time status on the PGA Tour, and he continued to play solidly through 2015.

But he didn’t win, and his highest finish in 20 major starts was a tie for 20th at the Masters in 2011. Then, in 2016, he suffered a back injury that limited him to six PGA Tour starts that year. The past two years, he has returned to playing almost exclusively in Japan. In the meantime, Hideki Matsuyama — five months younger than Ishikawa — has far surpassed him on the world stage, winning five times on the PGA Tour and finishing tied for second at the 2017 U.S. Open, which vaulted him to No. 2 in the world rankings, the highest ever for a Japanese player.

Ishikawa is playing at Harding Park this week because the PGA issued him a “special invitation” after he had three wins in Japan last year to jump back into the top 100 in the world rankings. (He finished the year at No. 80 and is currently 97th.) Now, though, he’s just a blip on the golf radar, someone who most will say might have been.

Ishikawa has won 17 times in Japan, a far cry from Ozaki’s 94 wins on the Japanese tour. Ozaki was a huge star in Japan but never really made a dent in the United States. He played in 49 majors and had three top 10s — the best a tie for sixth — and never finished higher than tied for fourth in a PGA Tour event.

Even so, he was voted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011 — Aoki, who finished second to Jack Nicklaus in the 1980 U.S. Open and won on both the PGA Tour and senior tour, was voted in seven years earlier — and made millions as a Japanese star. The saying about him among players was, “Nothing that isn’t silk ever touches that man’s body.”

The question now for Ishikawa, who won’t turn 29 until next month, is this: Does he grow into Ozaki, a very rich man who does little outside Japan, or does he rebuild his career and become the international champion he looked capable of becoming 10 years ago? Many golfers don’t peak until their 30s, but few who emerge post-30 were millionaires as teenagers.

The Ishikawa I spoke to that day at Pebble Beach clearly had his heart set on becoming Japan’s first true golf superstar. Whether that is the Ishikawa who tees it up Thursday at Harding Park is a different but fascinating question.

Read more: