Why Yoko Saso plays for the Philip­pines when she is also a Ja­panese

Golfing legend Annika Sorenstam chats with Pinay sensation Yuka Saso after her round today at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics women’s golf event at Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe, Japan.

KAWAGOE, JA­PAN— Why is Yoko Saso play­ing for the Philip­pines, when she is also a Ja­panese with a fam­ily that is liv­ing in Tokyo?

This was brought up by a lady Ja­panese re­porter again in one of the press in­ter­views at Ka­sum­i­gaseki Coun­try Club prior to the start of the women’s golf event of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics last week.

The 20-year-old Saso just had to cut her off with a re­ply that was al­ready tinged with de­fi­ance.

It could have been one of the things that threw her game off in the first round, when she shot a thereover 74 and found it dif­fi­cult to get back in the mix.

When asked if she was find­ing it dif­fi­cult to play for the Philip­pines in front of Ja­panese peo­ple and bal­anc­ing her loy­alty for both coun­tries, Yuka had this re­ply:

“I don’t get that feel­ing. I chose to be with the Philip­pines, and I don’t think that if the Ja­pan team is here, I don’t want to be here,” she an­swered.

“We don’t think like that, right. We came here to play golf. We’re not here to think [that] when we’re here in Ja­pan, I feel con­scious, no we don’t feel that way.”

Saso just wants to play golf and en­joy its fringe benefits. And she can only wish that in the long run, peo­ple will come to un­der­stand what she’s say­ing.

Just seven shots off

Saso played the fi­nal three rounds at nine-un­der-par, capped by a 65 on Satur­day that gave her a Top 10 fin­ish with a 274 to­tal in a field made up of the best play­ers in the world.

Amer­i­can Nelly Korda ruled the event with a fi­nal round 69 for a 267, a stroke ahead of Ja­pan’s Mone Inami and New Zealand’s Ly­dia Ko, who played off for the sil­ver with Inami win­ning.

With fellow Filipino Bianca Pagdanganan

“I’ve al­ways been rep­re­sent­ing the Philip­pines since I was an am­a­teur, it’s in the records. I grew up in the Philip­pines, I was born in the Philip­pines. You know, I wish I could rep­re­sent two, but I think in the world right now, it’s im­pos­si­ble.”

Rightly so. Saso was born in Bu­la­can prov­ince and she spent most of her child­hood hon­ing her skills in cour­ses like the Royal North­woods and then in Can­lubang.

It was an eco­nomic is­sue, ac­cord­ing to Saso’s fa­ther Masakazu, as he found spend­ing for their golf­ing too ex­pen­sive if they chose to play in Ja­pan.

Per­fect train­ing ground

The fa­ther and daugh­ter found the Philip­pines as the per­fect train­ing ground.

While she is well aware of a Ja­panese law that re­quires dual cit­i­zens born af­ter 1985 to choose their cit­i­zen­ship be­fore they turn 22, Saso says she’s not even think­ing about it yet and stands by what she’s al­ways been say­ing all these years.

“I love the Philip­pines as much as I love Ja­pan. Why do I have to choose? And why can’t I be both?” she of­ten asks.

US as base now

With her flour­ish­ing cam­paign on the Ladies Pro­fes­sional Golf As­so­ci­a­tion af­ter win­ning the Women’s US Open, Saso’s camp is ob­vi­ously pre­par­ing for the trans­fer of their base to the United States.

Saso’s Dad has al­ready signed a lease agree­ment for a con­do­minium unit in Dal­las, Texas, which will serve as their home ad­dress in the United States.

Yuka’s new world as a golf­ing su­per­star re­mains wide open for a lot of pos­si­bil­i­ties, but for the mean­time, those who are wait­ing for her to change the flag at­tached to her name ev­ery time she cam­paigns in events like the Olympics will have to wait a lit­tle longer.

Ul­ti­mately, it’s go­ing to be her de­ci­sion and no one else’s.

But for now, it’s go­ing to be the Philip­pine ver­sion of the red, white, and blue with the yel­low col­ored sun.