Kumiko Kaneda, the “Kinkumi” professional who confessed to having an incurable disease, told us what she “tried” to cope with her illness.

Coming out of an intractable disease in August

At the Fujitsu Ladies 2024 (Tokyu Seven Hundred Club, Chiba, Japan), held October 11-13, Ayaka Furue and Mimyu Yamashita were tied at 14 under par when Mimyu Yamashita sank the winning putt on the second playoff hole to take her first victory of the season.

Ayaka Furue and Yuri Yoshida, who mainly play overseas, also participated in this tournament. The tournament also featured women’s golf pro Kumiko Kaneda, who announced on her social networking site on August 20 that she has Meniere’s disease.

Meniere’s disease is characterized by sudden onset of severe dizziness accompanied by hearing loss, tinnitus, and nausea. The cause of the disease is still unknown, and it is believed to be caused by some kind of physical or mental stress.

According to a research publication by Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, the number of patients with neuro-otological disorders including Meniere’s disease increased after the Great East Japan Earthquake. This clearly shows the relationship with stress.

The YouTube channel “Kumiko Kaneda’s Kinkumi-Channel” has released a video as an “emergency report. In her own words, she expressed her feelings about her illness to those involved and her fans.

We asked Kanada again about her illness.

She said, “I was playing with a lot of difficulty, even closing my eyes during the rounds, so I think it must have looked pretty bad from the outside. I think it must have looked pretty bad from the outside.　You look like you are going to collapse. I didn’t want to worry people around me, so I thought it would be easier to tell them.

I didn’t want people to worry, so I thought it would be easier to just tell them.

The response to my public announcement of my illness was more than I had imagined. She expressed her gratitude to the people around her who gave her information about the disease.

I was very grateful,” he said. Some of the players have vertigo, and they tell me, ‘This is good. （I’m really glad I made it public. They don’t ask me any more questions.”

Abandoned the match and was immobile for 3 hours.

The change in his health began last year.

Last year I had about six mysterious fevers, two of them coronas and the flu, every other month. But other than that, nothing showed up on my tests.”

She was originally aware of symptoms of autonomic nervous system disorder, and often played without enough sleep. However, on the first day of the “CAT Ladies 2024” (Ohakone CC, Kanagawa, Japan) in August, her health deteriorated to the extent that she had to put back her breakfast before the start, and she had to abandon the tournament.

I thought it was my autonomic nervous system, and I thought it was a pattern of things getting too crazy. I also couldn’t sleep all night. ……”

I consulted a cardiac surgeon I knew that day, and he told me , “That kind of thing is Meniere’s or vertigo, so you should see an ENT.” The next day I went back to the ENT for another examination, and was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease.

He went from one hospital to another looking for a treatment, but he was unable to find a good treatment. However, all the doctors told him that stress was the cause. One doctor told him, “If you don ‘ t change your way of thinking, this disease will never go away,” and another said, “If you quit golf, you will be cured.

That’s when I started reading books. I guess books are the only way to change my personality. I don’t think people can change right away, but I thought (by reading books) I could change my way of thinking and other things for the better. I’m the type of person who thinks about unimportant things all the time. ……”

The books he went to the bookstore and purchased while looking at the contents were “How to Polish Your Resolve: The Super Translation of Yoshida Shoin” (edited and translated by Takamasa Ikeda, Sanctuary Publishing) and “80 Things People with Good Sense Do” (written by Mayumi Arikawa, Fusosha).

They were the easiest for me to understand, the simplest, and the most fitting. I feel a little less frustrated these days, partly because of the book.”

By learning from the book and practicing what she was told by her doctor, she says, “I feel much better.

What Ai Miyazato taught me

At the “Stanley Ladies Honda Golf Tournament” (Tomei CC, Shizuoka) on October 4-6, I participated as a hostess pro and had the opportunity to play a round in the same group with Ai Miyazato in the pro-am tournament. Without talking about her illness at all, she asked me, “What are you conscious of when you swing?” and “What are you conscious of when you putt? He asked her questions like an amateur. He said, ” I wanted to hear how good players do it.

I asked her directly about something that had been bothering her about the game of Ai Miyazato, a professional who has played on the world stage.

She said, “‘Ai, you don’t show your frustration. What do you do in those situations?’ She replied, “I’m the type of person who gets more frustrated if I show it, so I try not to show it and count the number of times I do it. I try not to show it and count. I count my steps, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5……, to forget.

Kaneda immediately put it into practice in his matches.

So I must be less angry than usual at Stanley (laughs).”

His goal for the future is first to overcome his illness. He added , “I have to rebuild my body. I haven’t been able to prepare well for the past two years. My goal is to build a body that is ready to win,” he says. Some people say, “You’re sick, so you should just take a break,” but he has decided that if there is no guarantee that he will recover even if he takes a break, then he has no choice but to compete.

It will soon be two months since he announced his illness. Kanada, who had failed to qualify the previous week, qualified at 5-under and shot an even score on the final day. His total score was 5-under, tied for 29th place. The pro, who has always had a negative attitude but “doesn’t see it that way,” is moving forward little by little as she deals with her illness.

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Kumiko Kaneda is 35 years old, born on August 14, 1989. Born in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture. She started playing golf at the age of 3 under the influence of her father, and at the age of 8 won the World Junior Championship, tying Tiger Woods’ record. At the time, she won numerous amateur tournaments and was called a “prodigy girl. Turned pro in 2008. Won the Fuji Sunken Ladies Classic for the first time in 2011. In 2010, she won the Mitsubishi Electric Ladies Golf Tournament for the first time in 11 years. Her height is 166 cm, weight 51 kg, and her nickname is “Kinkumi. Her Mercedes ranking is 76th (at the end of Fujitsu).