Ryo Ishikawa on edge to make it through to the Masters – Golf Feature
Ryo Ishikawa, Japan’s number one player and emerging young superstar, is hoping to play the Masters tournament scheduled in the first week of April, 2012.
However, he is currently struggling with his position in the Official World Golf Rankings, which see him at 54th, four places short of the qualification criteria.
However, he still has one month ahead of him to improve his rankings and confirm a spot in the first major event of the year.
The last event, that he is scheduled to play before Masters is the Arnold Palmer Invitational at the Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, Florida, starting from Thursday, March 22, 2012.
Therefore, a good finish in the tournament can easily earn him a place in the field of the best players from all over the world.
Ishikawa, who is scheduled to play a total of 34 tournaments in the 2012 golf season, has a serious issue to consider when he plans to participate in any of the event in his schedule, travelling long hours.
Normally, all the PGA Tour players have to travel in order to complete their schedules. However, they do not find it that difficult and tiring as Ishikawa does.
The maximum a United States’ player travels is five hours if he has to move from East Coast and Hawaii.
On the contrary, Ishikawa needs to fly over 14-hour differential time zone in events scheduled such as in Florida.
This type of schedule sometimes tires him prior to the start of any tournament and his performance, even if he denies it, is affected negatively.
Ishikawa was seen in action last week in the first World Golf Championship of the season, Accenture Match Play Champion, where he defeated Bill Haas 1-up in the opening round of the event.
However, he faltered in the second round and got defeated by Paul Lawrie 1-up in a match that never saw him going into the lead.
In Northern Trust Open, he looked totally out of his form and finished tied for 72 after carding 12-over par (73 – 70 – 76 – 77 = 296) tournament score.
The best performance of Ishikawa in the current season came in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, where he was tied for the 13th, seven shots behind the winner, Brandt Snedeker.
Therefore, his recent performances clearly make him a weak contender for the top-50 positions in the OWGR at the end of March, which is the deadline for the Maters’ qualification.
It seems that Ishikawa is taking too much pressure, along with the travelling schedule affecting his morale and confidence.
He was seen totally out-of-focus in the tournaments he has played recently, and he had no control over his shots.
There came a number of occasions when he missed some easy putts and converted his birdies to pars and pars into bogeys.
In turn, he has to face serious consequences of slumping rankings and missing the cuts, such as in his PGA Tour opener, Sony Open in Hawaii.
Ishikawa is one of the best players that Japan’s golf has ever seen. However, he needs to be more focused and consistent in his game.
If he really wants to be among the world’s superstars who astonish their opponents at any tournament they play all over the world, he needs to put a good show.
He definitely has the skills and quality to outshine his opponents in order to make good finishes in the events that he play.
However, he needs to rethink about his game and the mistakes he made in the recent tournaments and perform accordingly in the upcoming events to be a part of the Masters this year.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
Tags: