Japanese teen Ryo Ishikawa likes a challenge, so the US Open is right up his alley.
The 18-year-old golf sensation is making an impressive debut this week in the major championship billed as the toughest test in golf.
Ishikawa had a 36-hole total of one-under 141 - walking off the course on Friday after an even-par 71 sharing second place just two shots off the lead.
"I don't know if it's the right word, but my feeling is go for it," Ishikawa said. "So, challenging is something to me, and especially in the tournaments outside Japan, it doesn't mean anything if I don't challenge things."
Ishikawa, who authored an unprecedented 58 in winning the Crowns tournament on the Japan Tour this year, warmed up for the championship by playing the PGA Tour's Pebble Beach stop in February.
He struggled then with his short game, but has come back sharp on a course that plays much harder in the California summer.
"This week I'm doing great on putting," he said - a boast that Tiger Woods could only wish he could make as he languished seven shots adrift at the halfway stage.
Ishikawa has been a crowd-pleaser, with his game, his affable manner and his eye-catching ensembles - all pink for the first round and a bold red-and-white for Friday.
"I heard a lot of Japanese fans," he said. "I am very glad to hear them."
But Ishikawa, whose victory at the Crowns was his seventh on the Japan Tour, said he doesn't want to get sidetracked by the hoopla that surrounds a major championship, especially when he's in contention.
"I hope I can play more aggressive tomorrow and the next two days," Ishikawa said. "I hope I can focus on my golf, just on my golf."
He was paired for the first two rounds with another rising young star, Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, and veteran Tom Watson.
The 17th, a testing par-three that laid low some of the best - including Woods - on Friday, was a birdie hole for Ishikawa.
"I like it. I like 17," he beamed. "I hit a four-iron today and I couldn't see where the ball landed after the first bounce."
Then with a spurt of that modesty that earned him the nickname "Bashful Prince" in Japan, he added: "It was just a lucky bounce.
"The putting was very straight," he said, "Straight - right in."
McIlroy, who was two days shy of his 21st birthday when he won his first US Tour event at Quail Hollow in May, was tipped to contend here but managed only rounds of 75-77 for 152.
"Ryo played fantastically," said McIlroy, whose US victory came on the same day that Ishikawa fired his 58 in Japan. "He made a lot of putts. If he can keep his short game the way it is, I can definitely see him competing this weekend."
Watson, who won the US Open at Pebble Beach in 1982 and just missed out on another British Open title last year at the age of 59, said he saw a touch of himself in the youngster, especially when Ishikawa was knocking in putts on Pebble Beach's tricky poa annua greens.
"He reminded me of me when I was 18. Made everything," Watson said. "He just rammed it right in the middle of the back of the hole."
As they departed the 18th on Friday, Watson and Ishikawa exchanged a few words, and Watson offered a handshake.
"Tom said to me that I will have a good future," the recent high school graduate said.
Copyright 2010 AFP Asian Edition
