NOT too many are aware that newly-crowned US Women’s Open champion Yuka Saso came narrowly close to winning her first “Olympic” medal three years ago.
Fresh from her triumphant stint in the 2018 Asian Games, where she anchored the women’s national squad to the team and individual gold medals in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saso, then 17, also played in the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in Argentina just a few months later, the lone Filipino representative in golf.
Set apart every two years, the quadrennial YOG and the Olympic Games are staged by the International Olympic Committee.
Still flushed from her victorious Asian Games outing, the Filipino-Japanese played well enough in the three-day YOG girls golf tournament at the par-70 Hurlingham Club located 29.2 kilometers northwest of the Argentine capital.
Despite windy conditions, she emerged as a solid contender for the silver medal after shooting a 69 in the final round. She finishedd tied for second with Italy’s Alessia Nobilio and Austria’s Emma Spitz, who carded 74 and 72, respectively, all of them with total scores of 214 after 54 holes.
It was a gritty display for the young campaigner, who came back from five strokes down entering the last round to boost her medal chances.
Australia’s Grace Kim, who fired 71 on the final day to finish three shots ahead her pursuers at 211, clinched the gold medal, leaving Saso and her rivals to compete in a playoff on the first hole to decide the other medalists.
In the sudden-death playoff, Nobilio took the silver medal with a birdie while Spitz won the bronze with a par. Saso was left holding an empty bag after she muffed a six-foot putt for par she usually makes under normal circumstances.
“I’ve been in a few playoffs but I didn’t have the confidence,” Saso recalled in a story written by Ken Browne that was reposted last June 7, a day after her historic US Women’s Open victory.
“I was telling my coach I don’t know how to feel about it, I don’t know how to play the playoff holes and he was giving me tips; but it wouldn’t just stay in my mind,” she remembered. “So I think that’s the thing that I need to improve, my confidence in playoff situations.”
Undoubtedly, Saso, now 19, drew lessons from that disappointing experience when she fashioned her thrilling come-from-behind US Women’s Open victory three years later at the Olympic Club Lake course in San Francisco.
Playing under grinding conditions on the course that had staged the tourney five times, Saso scored an incredible comeback, capped by beating Japanese Nasa Hataoka on the third playoff hole to clinch the 76th edition of the championship.
Perhaps with the Buenos Aires meltdown still vivid in her mind, the ICTSI-sponsored Saso was a picture of a clutch player, sinking a 12-foot birdie putt on No. 1, a par five, to hoist the Harton S. Semple trophy while becoming the first Filipino golfer to win a major.
The Japanese Kyodo news agency reported a day after her victory that the turning point that led to her subsequent accomplishments was when she was just 13 while competing as a junior golfer in the US.
She saw the gap between her ball-striking and that of a 17-year-old competitor — a distance of about 50 yards — the report said.
“It was frustrating. I told myself I would learn to swing as hard as her by the following year,” Saso was quoted as saying.
Her father-coach, Masakazu, said that he was not sure if he would push through with the tough training regimen that her daughter needed to achieve her desired result. In the end, he asked Yuka to sign a pledge that she would not hold it against him once they began enforcing the grueling program.
“I will commit myself to rigorous training but I will not hate my parents for it. I will not dislike them. I will never forget to show a daughter’s smile,” the pledge she signed read, according to the report.
“From then on, Saso’s mornings began with a 5:30 a.m. run, followed by 10 sets of 50 and 100-meter sprints wearing 2-kilogram weights and 30 minutes of repetitive side step jumping before taking actual golf swings,” the report said.
“Then, she would do 30kg barbell squats, and sometimes even include dry swing training with a baseball bat while using ankle weights or shadow boxing to add variety to her workouts,” it added.
Throughout this regular daily workout ordeal that would have fazed other aspiring golfers, “Saso stayed calm, disciplined and in control regardless of the pressure and stress she was under,” keenly aware that she would reap the rewards sooner or later.
The epic US Women’s Open win boosted her stock immensely on the international stage and pushed her to No. 8 in both the Rolex Women’s World and International Golf Federation Olympic qualifying ratings released last week.
She is a lock for an Olympic qualifying slot, with the top 60 golfers on the cut-off date on June 28 for the women’s division eligible to play in the Tokyo summer Games.
Saso won’t be alone since former national teammate Bianca Pagdanganan is also a cinch to earn a Tokyo ticket at No. 42 in the IGF women’s ratings, along with Juvic Pagunsan, who recently won back-to-back events on the Japanese men’s tour and is ranked No. 52 in the men’s division.
“Of course I want to be a World No.1, playing in the LPGA, and it would be my dream, too, to win an Olympic gold medal,” Saso told the Olympic Channel of her lofty ambitions a year ago, which would seem wishful thinking to some then.
What may ring alarm bells to her rivals is that once the Tokyo Olympics wheels around, Saso will be virtually playing on her own turf since she has been a regular on the Japanese LPGA tour over the past 18 months, winning two major tournaments along the way.
What may even be more ominous to her foes, Saso revealed that she had already played on the Kasumigaseki Country Club course located just outside north of the Japanese capital that will be the arena for the Olympic golf tournaments.
The men’s competition is scheduled July 29 to Aug. 1 while the women’s event is slated Aug. 4 to 7 at the par-71, 7,466-yard layout that was redesigned in 2016 by American father-and-son architects Tom and Logan Fazio, at the cost of $13 million.
“I actually already played there (Kasumigaseki); the golf course was really good. They changed everything, and it’s all in good condition,” Saso said after sampling the playing conditions of the course.
With all her training, and the solid backing she has been receiving from her sponsors, her family and fans, Saso may just end the country’s long search for a gold medal in the Tokyo Games. That would really be an incredible accomplishment.
