Ryo Ishikawa

Ryo Ishikawa
石川 遼
Personal information
NicknameHanikami Ōji (Bashful Prince)
Born (1991-09-17) 17 September 1991 (age 33)
Matsubushi, Saitama, Japan
Height1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight72 kg (159 lb)
Sporting nationality Japan
ResidenceMatsubushi, Saitama, Japan
Career
Turned professional2008
Current tour(s)Japan Golf Tour
Former tour(s)PGA Tour
Professional wins20
Highest ranking29 (29 November 2009)[1]
Number of wins by tour
Japan Golf Tour19
Other1
Best results in major championships
Masters TournamentT20: 2011
PGA ChampionshipT29: 2013
U.S. OpenT30: 2011
The Open ChampionshipT27: 2010
Achievements and awards
Japan Golf Tour
Rookie of the Year		2008
Japan Golf Tour
money list winner		2009
Japan Golf Tour
Most Valuable Player		2009

Ryo Ishikawa (石川 遼, Ishikawa Ryō, born 17 September 1991), also known by the nickname "Hanikami Ōji" (ハニカミ王子, literally, "Bashful Prince"), is a Japanese professional golfer.

Amateur career

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On 20 May 2007, Ishikawa became the youngest winner ever of a men's regular tournament on the Japan Golf Tour by winning[2] the Munsingwear Open KSB Cup at the age 15 years and 8 months.[3] He competed as an amateur and it was Ishikawa's first tour appearance. He finished one shot ahead of Japan's 9th top ranked player at the time, Katsumasa Miyamoto. The highest ranked player on the Official World Golf Ranking who took part in the event was Toru Taniguchi who finished T13, 6 shots shy of Ishikawa. Taniguchi ranked number 86 in the world after the event.[4]

Professional career

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Ishikawa turned professional in 2008[5] and won another Japan Golf Tour tournament, the mynavi ABC Championship. By the close of 2008 he had become the youngest ever player to reach the top 100 of the Official World Golf Rankings.

Ishikawa played in PGA Tour tournaments for the first time in 2009. He was cut from the Northern Trust Open, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the 2009 Masters Tournament. He finished 71st at the Transitions Championship.

On 28 June 2009, Ishikawa won the Gateway to the Open Mizuno Open Yomiuri Classic on the Japan Golf Tour to qualify for the 2009 Open Championship, the first major event he qualified for without receiving a special exemption.

With four wins on the Japan Golf Tour in 2009, in September, Ishikawa became the youngest golfer ever to reach the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings.[6]

Ishikawa dominated the Japan Golf Tour for much of the 2009 season and was the top-ranked Japanese player in the World Rankings. On 18 October, he tied for second at the Japan Open, losing to Ryuichi Oda on the second hole of a playoff. He finished the season as the money list leader on the Japan Golf Tour with ¥183.52 million.[7]

At the Japan GTO awards, held in December 2009, Ishikawa earned 9 titles. In addition to top money earner, he was named MVP, best scoring average (69.93), best putting average (1.724), highest birdie haul (4.42), etc.[7]

On 2 May 2010, in the final round of The Crowns, he shot a 12-under-par 58 to win the tournament by five strokes. The 58 was the lowest score ever carded in a Japan Golf Tour event, eclipsing a 59 achieved in the first round of 2003 Acom International by Masahiro Kuramoto, and lowest ever on any major golf tour.[8] His round consisted of 12 birdies and six pars.[8] However, because the course was a par-70 (versus the par-72 courses where some players shot 59), the record is not the lowest in relation to par.

Ishikawa caught the attention of American golf fans at the 2010 U.S. Open. Wearing a bright bubblegum pink outfit, he played under par on the first day and was tied for second after the second day before falling back over the weekend.[9]

On 30 March 2011 Ishikawa announced that he will be donating all of his 2011 tour earnings, plus an additional ¥100,000 for every birdie he makes during the year, to the Japan earthquake relief efforts.[10]

On 11 March 2012, the one-year anniversary of the Japan earthquake, Ishikawa finished runner-up to George McNeill in the Puerto Rico Open, his highest PGA Tour finish thus far. Just over a week later, Ishikawa became a member of the PGA Tour.[11] The second-place finish earned Special Temporary Membership by exceeding $411,943, or 150th on the PGA Tour's 2011 money list.

Ishikawa played on the PGA Tour in 2013.[12] He made 13 cuts in 23 events, finishing 149th on the money list and missing the FedEx Cup playoffs (ranked 141st). He played the Web.com Tour Finals and finished 13th to retain his PGA Tour card for 2014.

Ishikawa got nine top-25s and made 14 cuts during the 2014 season, including a second-place finish at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and a T-5 at the unofficial ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf.

Professional wins (20)

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Japan Golf Tour wins (19)

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Legend
Japan majors (3)
Other Japan Golf Tour (16)
No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory 		Runner(s)-up
1 23 May 2007 Munsingwear Open KSB Cup
(as an amateur) 		−12 (72-69-69-66=276) 1 stroke Japan Katsumasa Miyamoto
2 2 Nov 2008 Mynavi ABC Championship −9 (70-70-70-69=279) 1 stroke Japan Keiichiro Fukabori
3 28 Jun 2009 Gateway to The Open Mizuno Open Yomiuri Classic −13 (69-65-68-73=275) 3 strokes New Zealand David Smail
4 2 Aug 2009 Sun Chlorella Classic −17 (65-68-71-67=271) 1 stroke Australia Brendan Jones
5 6 Sep 2009 Fujisankei Classic −12 (69-65-68-70=272) 5 strokes Japan Daisuke Maruyama
6 4 Oct 2009 Coca-Cola Tokai Classic −14 (71-68-66-69=274) 1 stroke Japan Takeshi Kajikawa
7 2 May 2010 The Crowns −13 (68-70-71-58=267) 5 strokes Japan Hiroyuki Fujita, Australia Paul Sheehan
8 5 Sep 2010 Fujisankei Classic (2) −9 (66-71-68-70=275) Playoff Japan Shunsuke Sonoda
9 13 Nov 2010 Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters −14 (70-72-65-67=274) 2 strokes Australia Brendan Jones
10 11 Nov 2012 Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters (2) −15 (67-69-69-68=273) 1 stroke Japan Michio Matsumura
11 6 Jul 2014 Nagashima Shigeo Invitational Sega Sammy Cup −10 (69-71-67-67=274) Playoff Japan Koumei Oda
12 20 Sep 2015 ANA Open −16 (68-68-67-69=272) 2 strokes Japan Yūsaku Miyazato
13 6 Dec 2015 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup −14 (68-68-63-67=266) 5 strokes Japan Yoshinori Fujimoto, Japan Koumei Oda
14 28 Aug 2016 RIZAP KBC Augusta −15 (66-68-70-69=273) 5 strokes New Zealand Michael Hendry, Australia Brad Kennedy,
Japan Tadahiro Takayama
15 7 Jul 2019 Japan PGA Championship −13 (65-67-71-66=269) Playoff South Korea Hwang Jung-gon
16 25 Aug 2019 Shigeo Nagashima Invitational Sega Sammy Cup (2) −20 (67-66-67-68=268) 4 strokes Philippines Juvic Pagunsan
17 8 Dec 2019 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup (2) −8 (68-70-68-66=272) Playoff Australia Brad Kennedy
18 13 Nov 2022 Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters (3) −8 (68-66-69-69=272) Playoff Japan Rikuya Hoshino
19 23 Jun 2024 Japan Players Championship −21 (66-64-69-68=267) 1 stroke Japan Kota Kaneko

Japan Golf Tour playoff record (5–5)

No. Year Tournament Opponent(s) Result
1 2009 Japan Open Golf Championship Japan Yasuharu Imano, Japan Ryuichi Oda Oda won with birdie on second extra hole
2 2010 Fujisankei Classic Japan Shunsuke Sonoda Won with par on fourth extra hole
3 2011 Totoumi Hamamatsu Open Japan Masanori Kobayashi Lost to birdie on second extra hole
4 2014 Nagashima Shigeo Invitational Sega Sammy Cup Japan Koumei Oda Won with birdie on third extra hole
5 2018 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup South Korea Hwang Jung-gon, Japan Satoshi Kodaira Kodaira won with birdie on first extra hole
6 2019 Japan PGA Championship South Korea Hwang Jung-gon Won with eagle on first extra hole
7 2019 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup Australia Brad Kennedy Won with birdie on third extra hole
8 2022 ANA Open Japan Tomoharu Otsuki Lost to eagle on first extra hole
9 2022 Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters Japan Rikuya Hoshino Won with birdie on second extra hole
10 2024 BMW Japan Golf Tour Championship Mori Building Cup Japan Hiroshi Iwata Lost to par on first extra hole

Other wins (1)

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Results in major championships

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Results not in chronological order in 2020.

Tournament 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Masters Tournament CUT CUT T20 CUT T38
U.S. Open T33 T30 CUT CUT
The Open Championship CUT T27 CUT CUT CUT
PGA Championship T56 CUT CUT T59 T29 CUT
Tournament 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Masters Tournament
PGA Championship CUT
U.S. Open T51 CUT 63 CUT
The Open Championship NT
  Did not play

CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic

Summary

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Tournament Wins 2nd 3rd Top-5 Top-10 Top-25 Events Cuts made
Masters Tournament 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 2
PGA Championship 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 3
U.S. Open 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 4
The Open Championship 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 1
Totals 0 0 0 0 0 1 25 10
  • Most consecutive cuts made – 3 (2012 PGA – 2013 PGA)
  • Longest streak of top-10s – 0

Results in The Players Championship

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Tournament 2015
The Players Championship T8
  Top 10

"T" indicates a tie for a place

Results in World Golf Championships

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Results not in chronological order before 2015.

Tournament 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Championship T42 68
Match Play R16 R64 R32 NT1
Invitational T53 T4 T50
Champions T17 T41 T66 T67 NT1

1Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic

  Top 10
  Did not play

QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
NT = no tournament
"T" = tied

Team appearances

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Professional

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Week 48 2009 Ending 29 Nov 2009" (pdf). OWGR. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  2. ^ Munsingwear Open KSB Cup 2007 Archived 2 August 2012 at archive.today
  3. ^ "Reuters: Golf-Japan hails schoolboy as world record breaker". Reuters. Archived from the original on 9 July 2007. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  4. ^ Official World Golf Ranking – 20 May 2007
  5. ^ "Sjoholm moves into top 10 as Ishikawa turns pro – 16 Jan 2008". OWGR. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  6. ^ "Week 36 – Steve Stricker is the New World Number Two after Victory at the Deutsche Bank Championship". OWGR. Archived from the original on 11 September 2012. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  7. ^ a b The Daily Yomiuri, 8 December 2009, p. 18
  8. ^ a b "Ishikawa's 58 sets major-tour record". Associated Press. 2 May 2010.
  9. ^ Ryo Ishikawa Shines at Pebble in Bubblegum Pink Archived 25 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine Golfblips, 17 June 2010
  10. ^ "Ryo Ishikawa to give 2011 golf earnings to Japan disaster victims". The Guardian. UK. 31 March 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  11. ^ "Ishikawa becomes member for 2012". PGA Tour. 19 March 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  12. ^ "Five internationals join Tour for 2013". PGA Tour. 20 November 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
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