A few years ago in Japan, the Keita Nakajima project was launched, a rocket-golf player born in 2000 who amazed everyone when he was very young and who has been shaping and taking care of step by step with the aim of making him one of the best in the world.
In 2015, still a teenager, he played his first professional tournament, the following year he won the Faldo Series of Asia and passed the cut at just 16 years old in a Japan Tour event. Another victory in 2017, amateur champion of Australia in 2018, champion of the Asian Games that same year and winner in 2021 of the Asian Pacific Amateur and the Panasonic Open, a professional tournament while still an amateur.
In 2022 he played the Masters, US Open and Open Championship. He missed the cut in all three but broke the record for consecutive weeks as the world’s Number One amateur, surpassing a certain Jon Rahm. Everything is beastly, everything is very fast, everything is very young, although in reality with a sustained and gradual growth, without saw teeth, without incredible blows. In 2023, his first year as a professional, he wins three Japan Tour tournaments, adds two second places, finishes eight times in the top 10 and takes the ranking. Everything is fast, but sustained, amazing, but step by step, overcoming each stage when it is time, shaping the exciting Nakajima project.
Today, March 30, 2024, the rocket has passed another reliability test in the third round of the Hero Indian Open. For the first time he has gone out to play a moving day of the DP World Tour as a leader and the result has been exceptional. He started with a two-stroke lead and went to bed with four over Romain Langasque and Gavin Green, after handing in a 68-stroke card. Beyond the numbers, the birdies, which have been six, and the bogeys, which have only been two, what has most caught the attention of Nakajima is the naturalness with which he has handled himself. As if he had been doing it all his life. As if he was born for this. It was an apparently easy 68 on a course that is anything but easy.
The first thing that impresses about Nakajima is his stance. He steps hard and with his head high. Then, he hits very straight from the tee, but very straight, he is aggressive, brave and putts in Japanese mode, in Kawamura mode. That is, like the angels. At the 9th tee, one of those moments that mark the character of a competitor occurred. He had just made an ugly bogey on the 8th, par 5, one of the easiest holes at the DLF Golf & CC. He had missed the drive off the tee. The 9th is a short par 4 where you really don’t gain much by hitting the driver. You have to do it perfectly to reach the green in one and the water waits threateningly on the left. In addition, today the flag was short, so it made even less sense to hit the big stick.
However, Nakajima did it. Surely, from a strict point of view of strategy, hitting the driver there is a mistake, but the Japanese wanted to send a message. “Yes, I missed the drive on the 8th, but I don’t back down, I keep pushing and pushing”. He didn’t even make the birdie, but the message was sent.
Nakajima went out to play with two golfers who are not exactly the ones who back down, Langasque (-14) and Matteo Manassero (-13), and the result has been magnificent. He was the best of the three, the most orderly, the best on the greens, the most reliable. Test passed. The Nakajima rocket has passed a new test and is closer to takeoff. Tomorrow, new test. The one to go out as a leader on the last day on the European circuit. We’ll see how it goes. For now, the project is progressing appropriately.
It was not a good day of movement for the Spaniards Adrián Otaegui (-2) and Ángel Hidalgo (+2). The two lost positions with rounds of 74 and 75 strokes, respectively. Too many mistakes. Ten bogeys between the two. The good thing is that still on Sunday, with a great round, they will have options to climb in the classification and take a good booty from India.
