ORLANDO, FLORIDA | She hasn’t gotten her due. Yuka Saso made a terrific birdie on the third playoff hole at Olympic Club in San Francisco last May to capture the U.S. Women’s Open and tie Inbee Park as the youngest player ever to win that championship at age 19.
By all rights, she should have been the darling of women’s golf, the first player from the Philippines to win a major, and to do it in an area that has the largest concentration of Filipinos in the United States. Plus, she’s ebullient, engaging, and speaks English with just enough of an accent to make her charming. Her golf swing is a replica of Rory McIlroy’s, so much so that Golf Channel filled hours of programming with analysts breaking down side-by-side videos. Then, the USGA capitalized on the storyline by flying Saso to Torrey Pines for the U.S. Open to hang out with McIlroy and show off the Women’s Open trophy.
But let’s face it, that U.S. Women’s Open is still remembered as the one Lexi lost, not the one Yuka won.
By denying Lexi Thompson, Saso has, in the minds of fans (assuming they think of her at all) become Jack Fleck, who denied Ben Hogan his fifth U.S. Open at Olympic in 1955. We are four full months away from her defending her title at Pine Needles in North Carolina and she’s an afterthought, a fluke, the spoiler in another chapter of “The Curse of The Olympic Club.”
People who think that way are dead wrong. As the 2022 LPGA Tour season enters the second week of the Florida swing, those who dismiss Yuka Saso are making a huge mistake.
Before arriving at Lake Nona for the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Saso officially announced what many of us have known for some time. She is now a Japanese national. Born in Bulacan, Philippines, to a Japanese father and Filipino mother, the family has resided in Japan for years. Yuka, a dual citizen, has played under the flag of the Philippines where she won the nation’s first golf gold medals in the Asian Games. But Japan requires dual citizens to choose before their 21st birthdays. Saso will turn 21 on June 20.
No matter what flag she represents, those in the know expect Saso to win again soon and often. At Lake Nona she hired veteran caddie Vern Tess for the three-week Florida swing. Like many, he’d paid very little attention to Saso after the Open. She’d popped up on the first page of a leaderboard here or there but nothing worth noting. One day out, and he couldn’t stop talking.
“I’ve been out here 20 years and seeing this level of raw talent is an amazing pleasure,” Tess said. “Even though you’re a caddie, you almost feel like you should step aside and watch the show.
“This is the perfect example of the next generation of golfer coming up in the women’s game. They hit it farther and higher and are more athletic than anybody thought possible. I mean, Yuka hit three or four drives a day well over the 300-yard mark. A few putts fall and she’ll contend every week.”
Saso finished sixth at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, a solid start to what could well be a breakout year on the LPGA.
“I didn’t really do much of anything,” she said of her offseason. “I slept a lot and played a lot with my brothers and sisters. I wasn’t really expecting anything to go well because it’s our first tournament, so I’m trying to get some tempo, trying to stay calm and just not really think about much, just get a feel for hitting the ball.”
She did more than work on her tempo. Early in the week, her agent, Jeff Chilcoat, brought in some financial advisors. Not only did Saso ask all the right questions, raising a few eyebrows by sounding like someone in their fifties with a background in accounting, she also translated into Japanese for her father in real time.
She’s trilingual – English, Japanese and Tagalog – and switches between them with the ease and confidence that also belies her years. During Thursday’s opening round, she was paired with Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine. Early in the round, she asked him, “What did you think about between pitches?” Glavine said, “Nothing, or I tried to think about nothing. All your thinking is done before you get to the mound. Once you’re there, you pick your pitch, pick your spot and go. Just like you on the course.”
Saso nodded. Later, after the round when much of the field adjourned to the range, Glavine asked Saso for some tips on hitting a pitch shot out of the rough. She spent 15 minutes explaining the shot, then demonstrated, almost holing two out of three with a wedge. Then she gave Glavine and fellow pitcher Jon Lester, who was listening intently, some drills. The baseball greats worked on them the rest of the afternoon.
… she’s not intimidated by the atmosphere. She knows she can compete. It’s a matter of the work she has to put in every day. But she knows she belongs out here.” – Tom Glavine
“She can flat play,” Glavine said. “She hits it a long way and is really good in every aspect of the game. But more than that, she’s a great personality. Obviously, she’s still a young girl who was kind of thrust onto the scene but she’s finding her way and really seems to enjoy what she’s doing.”
Glavine was once that young athlete thrust into the spotlight. As a member of the Atlanta Braves pitching rotation in the early 90s, he and John Smoltz were the young guns of baseball.
“I see similarities in that she’s not intimidated by the atmosphere,” Glavine said of the similarities to his youth. “She knows she can compete. It’s a matter of the work she has to put in every day. But she knows she belongs out here.”
She is also intensely curious. During another round where she drew Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier in her group, Saso asked dozens of questions about television news.
“She’s a fantastic lady,” Baier said. “She has an amazing game and a great attitude. But there’s more to her than that. We had long talks about a lot of things along the fairways. You don’t know whether or not to do that, but she really seemed to want to talk. She asked me a ton of questions about my job and anchoring. She says she’s concerned about her English but it’s perfect in every way. No translator needed.”
Tess agreed on every count. “She’s mature beyond her years,” he said. “And smart. I’ll tell you it takes a lot to impress me. But I’m blown away by her.”
“I know I still have a lot of things to learn,” Saso said at Lake Nona. “But having a good team gives me a little more confidence. It really helps.”