High Hopes for Kanaya in Honolulu

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States: Takumi Kanaya has received countless advice in his fledgling professional golf career. But one piece of guidance stands out in particular, which has become his life’s mantra.

As the 22-year-old prepares to take another crack on the PGA Tour with an appearance at this week's Sony Open in Hawaii, he will hold close to him the Japanese word ‘Gamushara’, which was passed on to him by his junior high school teacher.

“Gamushara is a word that my teacher taught me when I graduated from junior high school. It really touched my heart, and I’ve carried it with me ever since. It’s hard to come up with a literal translation, but in my mind, it really means just one thing: Go for it. It’s a word I often remind myself of when things may be going poorly, that as a young kid I made a firm commitment to always just go for it,” said Kanaya, winner of the 2018 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) who soared to number one in The R&A World Amateur Golf Ranking before turning pro late last year.

He intends to stick to his motto at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu this week when he comes up against a stellar field led by defending champion Cameron Smith of Australia, another AAC alumni.

With his growing stature, Kanaya’s progress is followed closely by Japanese fans and media, many of whom have likened his emergence to its nation’s current leading golfer, five-time PGA Tour champion Hideki Matsuyama, a two-time former AAC winner.

This week marks Kanaya’s sixth career start on the PGA Tour – and he hopes to make the most of.

“Wherever I go and regardless of the players, what stands out to me more than anything is the depth of the game and how the players all have their own individual strong points,” said Kanaya, who is in the field on a sponsor exemption. “Just being among these guys has motivated me to improve even more so that I can compete on their level in the future. I’ve also come to realise just how pre-eminent the PGA Tour stage is and what I need to do in order to make it there.”

In 2019, Kanaya defeated the pros at the Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheyo Masters on the Japan Golf Tour. Last November, just one month after turning professional, he triumphed again on home soil at the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament, in what was his fourth start in the play-for-pay ranks.

He is quick to brush aside comparisons to Matsuyama. However, Kanaya hopes to emulate the consistency which Matsuyama has exhibited in his career and reflected by seven successive appearances in the FedEx Cup Play-offs finale, the Tour Championship.

“It would be my honour to be able to compare with my senior Hideki Matsuyama, but I don’t think I’ve reached that level quite yet. I think the only thing we have in common is that we both went to the same university (Tohoku Fukushi University),” said Kanaya.

“I think Hideki’s sense of stability and keeping his score together and not breaking down even when things are going poorly is remarkable. I can’t do that and want to learn how to become a more stable player by gaining more experience through my own trial and error.”

His short-term goals are obvious, and he isn’t shy to share them. “I want to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics (in July). Also, securing status on the European Tour and PGA Tour is something I want to achieve right away. In the long term, I want to become a world-class player competing at the highest level, winning Majors, and becoming world number one,” said Kanaya.

His quest to tick those boxes could well begin at the Sony Open in Hawaii.