Meet Hiroshi Iwata, the Unknown Golfer Who Made History at the PGA Championship

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: August 14, 2015

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HAVEN, Wis. — He’s 102nd in the world golf rankings. He needs an interpreter when the questions are in English. And Friday in the second round of the 97th PGA Championship, Hiroshi Iwata equaled the lowest round ever in a major tournament.

Are we permitted to tweak the title of that old Beatles hit and make it “Out of Nowhere Man”?

Golf: bewildering, captivating and absolutely delightful. There’s no defense, and because anything can happen at any moment, there’s a high degree of unpredictability. And inconsistency.

On Thursday, Iwata, of Miyagi, Japan, shot a five-over-par 77. He was as good as gone, a cinch to miss the cut, as he had been the previous times he had played in a major, the British Opens of 2008, 2014 and this year, 2015. He started from nowhere, and we surmised he was destined to return to nowhere.

And then Friday at Whistling Straits, where the temperature was 79 degrees and the wind was down to almost nothing, Iwata shot 63. It was an improvement of 14 strokes, or virtually one stroke per hole. Instead of heading home, he was heading up the leaderboard.

“The course conditions are very different from yesterday and today,” Iwata said through the interpreter.

So was Iwata, a 34-year-old who has been on the Japanese Tour for 11 years but is so little known outside Asia that Reiko Takekawa of the Kyodo News, a golf correspondent based in Los Angeles, was unable to provide background other than could be located in the media guides.



It’s not so much a magic number, 63, whether on a course like Whistling Straits with a par of 72 or one with a par of 70. It’s more of a barrier. Maybe even a curse.

Twenty-seven times since Johnny Miller did it originally in the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, a golfer has hit a 63 in a major. It’s been done in all four majors. An...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Golf

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