Ryo Ishikawa, picture from golf-walls.com

Ryo Ishikawa is considered by many in Japan to be the Japanese version of Tiger Woods. He hasn’t won that many tournaments yet, but he has certainly developed a deep fan base that believes in his future. Still only in his teens, Ishikawa’s future looks like it will include some major international championship wins.

He may get a chance to notch up the first overseas win at this year’s British Open. The organizers of the tournament have decided to create a ‘must be watched’ television spot for Japan in pairing Ryo Ishikawa with Tiger Woods for the first two days.

Tiger Woods at the British Open, picture from theonion.com

Tiger is hugely popular in Japan, and the combination of Tiger with Ishikawa should be very interesting. Maruyama Shigeki also used to play well when he was paired with Tiger and I’m sure the commentators will be drawing some comparisons.

Tee off will be at 9:09am UK time on this Thursday, July 16th 2009, which should make it viewable in Japan in the early evening and then 2:20pm local UK time on Friday.

Ishikawa won the Mizuno Open to qualify for the British Open and hopefully will be in top form when he competes this week. Tiger has already won three British Opens and will be keen to increase his total number of Major Wins to 16. Let’s hope they both fire on the day and provide some excitement for viewers.

If you haven’t seen Ishikawa’s swing before then here is a good chance to study it in slow motion with swingvision

and then off course there is Tiger.

Thanks
Thanks to Leo Nooyen for emailing to tell me about this great story and to Sports ESPN for the info on tee times

More Info

• Story on the British Open site about Tiger Woods and Ryo Ishikawa.
• The official site for the British Open gives up-to-date information on players and course conditions.
• Tiger Woods Home Page

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