Miyazato reaches superstar stature in Japan
Ai Miyazato stands only 5-feet-1 and she hasn't won in 2½ years on the LPGA Tour, but back home in Japan she's a big deal.
A really big deal.
In fact, just like Japanese baseball stars Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and Hideki Matsui of the Yankees, she has appeared on a postage stamp.
Her face also was once carved into a 50-foot snow sculpture at a winter festival in Sapporo and when she won the Japanese LPGA in 2004 on the same weekend Tiger Woods won a tournament in Japan (the Dunlop Phoenix), Miyazato's TV ratings tamed Tiger's, 11.0 to 2.6.
"I don't think it's that big of pressure," Miyazato said of her stature.
