Ryo Ishikawa Brought a Lot of Friends to LA

Friends is a loose term for media throng.  There are over 400 media credentials out there for the Northern Trust Open this week, in which Ishikawa is playing under exemption.  Over 100 of those are Japanese media.

Jill Painter, in the LA Daily News, details some of the Barnum and Bailey's traveling with Ringmaster Ishikawa.

The PGA Tour responded to the media crush in unprecedented fashion. An additional PGA Tour official, Dave Lancer, is on site, and his job is to shadow Ishikawa all week.

Lancer has an interpreter, too.

Lancer will be instructing photographers to stop clicking during backswings and scolding reporters who scurry off to the next hole before Ishikawa's playing partners have finished the hole. He knows a few phrases in Japanese, but those are simple things like "good morning," not "get down now, you're blocking live television!"

Lucky for Lancer, "no" is universal.

The media tent is more like a compound, 75 feet longer than in previous years. The dining room size doubled and the news conference area was enlarged so that everyone had a view of Ishikawa.

Tour rules and regulations have been translated into Japanese, and the tour has already had one meeting with Japanese media to make sure everyone knew the rules of covering a golf tournament.

Many of the reporters know nothing about golf but just want every morsel of information on Ishikawa. They're getting a crash course in golf course etiquette.

I might have to have Dave on the show to talk about the experience of being the handler for Ishikawa.  From what I have heard and seen, though, this 17 year old kid is very well seasoned and handles himself very well in front of anyone.