10-year-old shows prodigal potential
EL CAJON, Calif. — Miroku Suto of Japan looks like a professional golfer with logos of 11 sponsors splashed across her polo shirt, cap, bag and even her belt. Her parents say the deals are worth in the mid-six figures annually, with some contracts for 10 years. A 12th sponsorship is waiting when she returns to her home three hours outside of Tokyo.
The sponsors are so important that Suto’s mother and caddie, former figure skater Miyuki Suto, had her daughter change into a sponsor’s belt before she sat for a video interview and carefully arranged her hat in her hands so the logos could be seen.
Miroku Suto has extreme confidence, saying through an interpreter she wants to become “a legend.”
She has a ways to go.
She’s only 10.
Although Suto won consecutive titles in the 6-and-under age group at the Junior World Golf Championships in 201718 on a par-3 course, she hasn’t done as well as she’s moved up in age.
She struggled this year in the 9-10 age group and tied for 17th, 18 shots behind the winner on a par-74, 4,201-yard layout at Sycuan Resort Willow Glen Course. It’s the third straight time she has left San Diego without a title (the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the pandemic).
While other girls and boys in the 9-10 age group goofed around on the putting green waiting for the awards ceremony, Suto did interviews on the fringe of a nearby green, including one with a Tokyo TV crew that had followed her around for three days on a suburban course. She did show some playfulness when she did the equivalent of a snow angel on the shaded grass.
Otherwise, it’s all business. She and her mother were dressed alike, including wearing coral-colored seersucker shorts. Suto is well-known in Japan, a golf-crazed country that has produced two major champions in recent years — Hinako Shibuno in the 2019 Women’s British Open and Hideki Matsuyama at the 2021 Masters. It is common for TV ratings in Japan to be higher for women than men.