Player's Chairman Ryo Ishikawa had to face very tough day on Round 1 at The Crowns. He ended up scoring 11 over par 81 for the day. He really wanted to show that he has recovered from the back injury which costed him to withdraw from the season opening event at Token 2 weeks ago.
"I felt fine in the morning. I felt secured and teed off feeling well."

The Crowns is marking its 60th anniversary tournament this year, and before Ryo started, he joined the Honorary Starter Ceremony, where Isao Aoki the JGTO Chairman started the event with opening tee shot.

Ryo in the good ceremonial mood birdies the starting hole, but from the 2nd hole he makes 2 straight bogeys. On 5th, where he drove the tee shot way left, he ended up with a double bogey.
"Different from yesterday, I got little nervous. Many spectators were at the tournament, and I guess I got too motivated."

Then the accident happened on the 8th. After the tee shot with 3W, his back was injured again.
"It was a good shot, but I felt the pain at my follow through. I couldn't move after my swing."
He stood there almost frozen, then he barely was able to walk using his club as a walking stick.
It was obvious that he was in pain.
"I tried to walk not stressing my back, that must have seemed very awkward move."

After that Ryo decided to hit the tee shots with irons, but he was in pain walking, how could he play golf?
On 11th, he had to hit 4 times to get out of the bunker, which ended as double par 8.
"I couldn't keep myself together."
As he said, he made 3 straight bogeys from 14, which was miserable to see.

"If I could make it better by tomorrow."
Ryo feels responsible as Player's Chairman to support the tournament. He asked the staff to give out his autographed gifts to the children who came to visit the game, and rushed back to get treatment.