Nasa Hataoka is in contention to win… “U.S. Women’s Open” Hinako Shibuno is “seriously ill” after failing to qualify in 133rd place.

The U.S. Women’s Open Championship, the third overseas women’s golf major, which was held from July 6, came to a close. The U.S. Open Championship, the third major for women’s golf overseas, was held from July 6 to July 7, and the Japanese teams put up a strong showing.

The course has hosted the men’s U.S. Open six times in the past, and the strong winds from the ocean have created many famous dramas. From Japan, 22 players participated in the tournament, including Yuka Sasao, the champion of the 2009 tournament, Nasa Hataoka, who played a heated match until the playoff, as well as the domestic queen, Mimu Yamashita, and the strongest amateur, Sakiki Baba.

Among them, Hinako Shibuno, the queen of the Women’s British Open in 2007, attracted the most attention because of her name recognition. However, there were concerns even before the start of the event that she was forced to play in the tournament with a sore base of her left thumb, and the result was a 14-over 133rd-place finish and a failure to qualify. The result was a 14-over par finish of 133rd, his fourth consecutive failure to qualify.

The result was a 14-over 133rd-place finish, his fourth consecutive failure to qualify. “Shibuno’s form improvement since the off-season has been going well, and he had not failed to qualify until April, but in his sixth round at the Chevron Championship, his wrist was taped. It was believed to be “left wrist pain,” which is said to be one of her occupational diseases, but on the first day of the “Bridgestone Ladies” in May, her first round on the domestic tour, she unexpectedly failed to start at 5 over. But on the first day of the first round of the Bridgestone Ladies in May, she unexpectedly came in at 5 over on the first day of the first round of the Bridgestone Ladies.

However, two weeks later, on the first day of the Suntory Ladies, Shibuno surprised the press.

Shibuno suddenly changed her grip from “interlocking” (intertwining the index finger of her left hand with the little finger of her right hand) to a “ten-finger” grip, also known as a “baseball grip” (a style in which the bat is held with ten fingers). After the game, he was cheerful, saying, “They’ll know.” “My thumb is sticking out,” he said. ……

Changing grips during the season is a rare occurrence. That is why he reminded everyone of men’s professional legend Shigeki Maruyama,

He was the first Japanese to win 10 tournaments in Japan and the first Japanese to win 3 tournaments on the U.S. Tour, but in ’17 he changed to a baseball grip because of an injury to the base of the thumb on his left hand. Last year, when he came back to the Senior Tour for the first time in three years since his debut at the 2007 Komatsu Open, he laughed and said, “If the course is around 6,500 yards, I can shoot a 66. As long as the greens are not too fast,” he laughed, “that’s how difficult it is to change grips.

Even though they are different in age, after Shibuno failed to qualify for the second round in a row, I saw him stoutly saying, ‘I need to practice and get it right,’ and I became concerned about his future.

(The sports desk reported that he was worried about his future.) However, after the final adjustment on July 5, he revealed that he had reverted to the conventional interlocking,

I hope he will get better as much as possible since many pros are suffering from ‘pain at the base of the left thumb. For example, Hideki Matsuyama suffered from pain in ’18 that kept him out of the game for about a month.

Three years later, in April ’21, he won the Masters, which he had longed for, but in March of that year, after the second turn on the second day of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he received emergency taping treatment from a trainer. He rarely talks about his injuries, but he had mentioned that he hadn’t felt pain in a while. But a month later, he put on the green jacket that everyone longs to wear.

Will Shibuno be able to make a spectacular comeback like Matsuyama?