＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Added on 6/23/2024> Ryo Ishikawa wins the Players Championship Sato Foods!
On the final day of the Players Championship Sato Foods (23rd, Nishinasuno CC, Tochigi Prefecture, 7036 yards, par 72), Ryo Ishikawa, who started in second place, shot 68 with 6 birdies and 2 bogeys to finish with a total of 21 under par 267 and win his first title in two seasons. This was his 19th tour win and he received a prize of 10 million yen.
<Added on 11/13/2022> Congratulations to Ryo Ishikawa for winning the SumitomoMitsui VISA Pacific Masters!
At the 50th “Sumitomo Mitsui VISA Taiheiyo Masters” (Taiheiyo Club Gotemba C. Total prize money of 200 million yen, 40 million yen for the winner), 31-year-old Ryo Ishikawa won his 18th tour victory in 2 years and 11 months after a playoff. He won the playoff against Rikuya Hoshino, who was third in the prize money rankings, in the second hole.
He finished the regular 18 holes with 5 birdies, 2 bogeys, and 1 double bogey for a score of 69, for a total of 8 under par, 272. This is his first victory since the Japan Series JT Cup in December 2019. This is also his third victory in the tournament, tying him with Masashi Ozaki, Tsuneyuki Nakajima, and Lee Westwood for the most wins in the tournament, following his victories in 2010 and 2012.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Ryo Ishikawa smile. With this, he now has two more wins than Hideki Matsuyama, who has 8 wins on the Japan Tour and 8 wins on the US Tour (total of 16 wins).
<Added on 4/12/2021> Hideki Matsuyama achieves the feat of winning the Masters! Congratulations!
Hideki Matsuyama won the 2021 Masters. He is the first Japanese player to win a major. This brings his total to six wins on the US Tour and eight wins on the Japan Tour. As the saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race.”
1. Hideki Matsuyama, a “slow-paced” player who got off to a slow start
When it comes to Ryo Ishikawa (born September 1991), the “worthy rival” is Hideki Matsuyama (born February 1992), who is of the same generation. Ishikawa showed remarkable success from his high school days, becoming the youngest high school student to become a professional golfer in history, and the youngest to ever win the top prize money, showing an amazing start like a “rocket start.”
In comparison, Matsuyama seemed to have fallen far behind. I remember there was an article in which, while reading a sports newspaper reporting on Ishikawa’s success at the university’s golf club training camp, a reporter asked him, “Are you interested in Ishikawa’s success?” to which he replied bluntly, “I don’t really care.”
I’m sure many thoughts were running through his mind, but he probably just “persevered and restrained” and focused on honing his golf skills every day.
When I saw Matsuyama competing in the domestic tour as an amateur and doing so well that it wasn’t uncommon for him to finish in the top 10, I thought, “If he took the pro test early and become a pro, he could have earned a lot of prize money, so he’s missing out.”
However, he remained an amateur until his third year of university, and in 2011 he became the first Japanese amateur to compete in the Masters, and the youngest Japanese player to qualify for the Masters (19 years old at the time). He won the “low amateur” award at the Masters in 2011, and has competed as a professional five times since 2014 (his highest ranking was fifth place in 2015).
In 2013, he became the first player in the history of the Japan Tour to win the top prize money in his rookie year. With four wins in a year (tied for the most ever), he surpassed the 200 million yen mark in prize money in a year, the fastest in history. In 2014, he became the youngest Japanese player to win a US Tour title (22 years old at the time).
He currently has eight wins on the Japan Tour (including one major) and five wins on the US Tour, and is currently ranked 19th in the World Golf Rankings.
2. Slow and steady wins the race
He is not as flashy as Ishikawa, and is rather modest, but I still think he is a genius. It’s a little different from the parable of “The Tortoise and the Hare,” but his golf life is a perfect example of the proverb “Slow and steady wins the race.”
Just as there are no “ifs” in golf, there are no “ifs” in life either. However, I think that if Ishikawa had gone to university and honed his skills in the golf club, or if he had had the time to focus on golf as an amateur without going to university, his future golfing career might have been different.
There are proverbs that say, “He who advances easily retreats（「進む者は退き易し」）,” and “He knows how to advance but does not know how to retreat（「進むを知りて退くを知らず」）.”
It may be presumptuous of me to say this, but I hope that Ryo Ishikawa, whose motto is “If you’re in a hurry, take the shortcut and don’t be afraid of the risks（「急がば回るな」）” will also ponder the meaning of these words.
Professional baseball player Shohei Ohtani also wanted to try out for the Major Leagues from the start, but after being persuaded by Nippon Ham Fighters manager Kuriyama, he agreed to first play in Japanese professional baseball and then try out for the majors a few years later, and that’s exactly what happened.
As you all know, Ohtani has been doing great in the major leagues this year. I think this is a case where it went very well. The materials that Manager Kuriyama presented during the negotiations (detailing examples of past failures in the major leagues and the harsh reality of the major leagues) also seemed very persuasive.
I’m not saying that Ishikawa got carried away, but there was no one to calmly persuade him to change his mind, and he became distracted by the idea of ”challenging the US Tour,” and I think that he wasted a regrettable few years. Am I the only one who thinks this?