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| Ryo Ishikawa Photo: Khalid Redza /Asian Tour via Getty Images |
2011 was a challenging year for the young champion both on and off the course. He finished the season winless, and at 51 in the world, one spot shy of earning automatic qualification for the Masters.
He'll now need to make the top 50 a week before the Masters, or win on the U.S. PGA Tour, to qualify for a spot in the field at Augusta. To that end the player who was recently called "too intense" by W#2 Lee Westwood, will be playing very... intensively between now and April.
When epic natural disaster struck his native Japan almost a year ago, the then-19-year-old announced that he would donate all of his golf earnings for 2011 to the Japan relief fund. I don't know exactly how much that ended up being but by mid-October it was approaching $1.5 million. It was what he said about his donation however, that earned Ryo Ishikawa a place on business writer Jena McGregor's list of the past year's most inspiring leadership quotes:
The list appeared yesterday at On Leadership the blog McGregor writes for TheWashingtonPost.com. She explains that she finds Ishikawa’s quote memorable for a couple of reasons, "...one is his use of the word “responsibility” to describe what he believes he owes the Japanese people because his status in the golf world has risen. The second is his remarkable willingness to donate all of his earnings of last year to earthquake relief. So many people in power are paid far more handsomely than Ishikawa, and yet we don’t know of many who have made such generous gestures."
If you're a Ryo Ishikawa fan you can do what we did and send the inspiring golf star New Year message here.
The Japanese have handled what happened in their country remarkably well, I think the global community as lost sight of that to a certain extent as the disaster is in some ways still unfolding. Ryo is certainly to be commended.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJFyDnWBfb0
He is a very classy young man. His game will be on the ascend for quite a few years. I know Ai Miyazato did quite a lot for the relief efforts also.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great example of what a true leader is. Our sports stars are usually placed on such a high pedestal that they are distanced from our culture. To see an athlete so committed to his country is commendable.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan but he hasn't quite reached the heights of say, Jason Day? So many other sportspeople could learn from his humility and appreciation though!
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