Small Man Beats the Big Girl
January 19, 2007
HONOLULU — On Jan. 8, the Moanalua High sophomore had just turned 16. Then he became the only amateur tied for eighth against 72 pro-golfers going into the final round of the Sony Open at the Waialae Country Club.
The 5’ 1″, 135-pound Tadd Fujikawa lost to Paul Goydos and finished in 20th place out of 73 in his hometown.
Although Fujikawa bested Michelle Wie, he’s not rubbing it in. “No, that’s kind of mean,” he said. “I’m not that mean. I probably won’t do that.”
“I never imagined myself doing this, especially at this age,” he said.
At 15, he became the youngest to qualify for the U.S. Open since 1941.
No one imagined that Tadd would live, after being born in Honolulu, 3-1/2 months premature, weighing only 1 pound, 15 ounces.
“They said he only had a 50 percent chance to live,” said his mom, Lori. “There was no reason for me to go into labor so early. I guess he wanted to come out and see the world.”
Overcoming more surgeries in Tadd’s first year and the risk of mental disability, Lori today works at an auto body shop until school gets out, picks up her son who plays golf until dark.
Tadd, who at 12, took his first lesson from a PGA teaching pro, decided last fall to figure out the rest on his own.
Before he started driving golf balls at age 8, he started judo at 4 and by 12, he had won four national junior judo championships, which his father Derrick, helped teach him. His mother said judo is where he developed a “killer instinct.”
Although the smallest for his age group in judo, he said at the U.S. Open that “judo is certainly a sport that a small man can always beat the big man. I think that really helped me just in everything that I’ve done.”
— AsianWeek Staff Report with contributions by AP
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