Flash in Japan, but world stardom another matter for Ishikawa

Said the journalist: "Oh, no, nobody is talking about Miyazato anymore. Have you not heard about the 15-year-old amateur who won on the Japan Tour? He is newest big star."

At 5-feet-7 and 141 pounds, big is a loaded term, but Ishikawa seems to possess the talent, nerve and telegenics to make transcontinental noise. Steel yourself for plenty of Rising Son headlines if he manages to sniff the leaderboard in any of his U.S. starts.

In an Internet-fueled world, the temptation is to make snap judgments, to take a small body of work and cast fast aspersions. Even if Ishikawa tanks in his two months in America, he's only 17 and has plenty of time to find his place in the game. Whether it'll be in the U.S. or Japan, where countryman Jumbo Ozaki won 111 times but rarely made a splash anywhere else, is anybody's guess. Emphasis on the guess, at this point.

So while I will take the cautionary high road for once, rest assured the media frenzy in Japan learned nothing by the middling results recorded here by Miyazato -- and she plays on a tour with far less global talent. When Ishikawa won the Munsingwear Open at age 15, even by generous American standards, the hype back home was astounding.

"More of a genius than Woods," Sankei Sports said.

Speaking of Tiger, here's a telling example of how the Japanese are starved for a new golf hero and laboring to keep any breakthrough in perspective.

Last year at the U.S. Open, Woods took a seat in the Torrey Pines media center on Tuesday to address the health of his obviously ailing knee. He hadn't played since the Masters, had already undergone arthroscopic surgery, and had reinjured the knee while rehabbing. Anyway, before a room packed with the probing minds of global sports journalists, a reporter from Japan blurted out the first question to Sir Eldrick.

This is the query, verbatim, courtesy of the USGA's transcription service:

"Well, obviously you're very good at this course. You're so good at it. This past January you won at the Buick Invitational, you were the first and the second was a Japanese player, Ryuji Imada, who is one year younger than you, and it was a long way to come, finally he won a PGA Tour event, and he was the third Japanese player to win. He's been looking forward to play with you again at the U.S. Open. What do you think of Ryuji Imada?"

Woods tried valiantly to fight off a smirk. Imada, by the way, is a Japanese-born veteran who played college golf at Georgia and has lived in the United States for so long, he speaks English more fluently than half the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Imada won last year in Atlanta, becoming an overnight sensation in Japan, which has produced precious few impact players on the global golf scene lately. Only one other Japanese player had ever won on the U.S. mainland, Shigeki Maruyama.

After the Woods press session was finished, somebody found Imada on the golf course and told him that, ridiculously, he was the subject of the first question posed to Woods. Imada sighed and said, "Let me guess -- Japanese journalist?"

Hai.

True, the golf-consumed Japanese fans are seemingly desperate. The injury-plagued Maruyama, by far the most successful Japanese male in the States with three victories, finished 207th in PGA Tour earnings last year and is mostly trying to keep his foot in the door.

By comparison, if the overexposure of emerging players in the States seems brisk at times, we've got nothing on Japan, where they sling millions and ask questions later. Ishikawa, represented by management giant IMG, has reportedly signed $28 million in endorsement deals with 13 companies, including Panasonic, Toyota and Coca-Cola. He's quite a commodity, mostly unproved or not.

In a rarity, a veteran PGA Tour media official has been assigned to shadow Ishikawa inside the ropes all week -- which means he's really riding herd over the Japanese media, a group that includes several reporters who have never before covered a professional event. Gulp.

Ishikawa read from a prepared statement as he began his press session Tuesday, charming the hundreds that packed the room for a look-see. He cleared up the confusion about how his name is pronounced, too.

"How you pronounce my name, it is rr-YO," he said, emphasizing the accents and syllables. "Everyone, repeat after me, rr-YO! That's it, OK, thank you."

Maybe this time, he'll be around long enough for folks to remember it.