No question about it, Ooi Tonbo has taken quite a turn. A perfectly logical one given the nature of the premise, and one it’s navigated very well so far. Nevertheless a whiplash-inducing hairpin worthy of Big Sur to be sure. It would be hard to imagine anything more different from the first season and still golf-related than this. Inevitably we’ve gone much more conventional here (apart from Tonbo’s game). It can be harder to maintain a compelling narrative when that happens, but I suppose the series had no choice but to go for it.
It’s a tournament episode, plain and simple. After no competitive golf at all in S1 (even so much as keeping score) this entire episode took place during the first round of the Kyuushuu Women’s Open. Mostly the front nine, to be precise. Tonbo is paired with a couple of girls her own age, nowhere near as gifted and rather typically snot-nosed. Much more interestingly there’s Shima Michiko (the uber-classy veteran Kobayashi Sanae). While most of the field is made up of teens, Shima-san is a housewife and mom in her 30’s (or so). And Tonbo’s other two playing partners could hardly be more disdainful.
It was an interesting twist, making Michiko as much of the focus of Tonbo’s first competitive round as Tonbo herself. It reminded me a bit of Inokuma-san in Chihayafuru, the 34 year-old mom who returned to karuta and made it all the way to the Queen finals. Except that Inokuma was an elite player and Michiko is basically a glorified duffer just trying to make it to the final round. In fact she’s playing to honor her late husband, who loved golf and tried – and failed – to get her into it. A set of clubs was his last present to her – a posthumous one.
For obvious reasons Tonbo can relate to this. And because Tonbo is fundamentally a kind and respectful child, she treats Shima-san with kindness and respect even as their partners increasingly grow irritated with her. They grow irritated with Tonbo too, who casually eagles her first tournament hole and, using her dizzying variety of draws and fades and ball flights, pulls far ahead of the others. Shima even gets an inadvertent lesson from her, mimicking Tonbo’s approach to a bunker shot (with great success – she holes out).
This is an interesting nine holes to watch play out. A marshal accompanies the group – not unexpectedly given that it’s a tournament – but I was surprised to see her offer yardages and even advice on club selection. I guess things are more relaxed at this level. Speaking of club selection, one of the things the snot twins find most irritating about Tonbo is the way she’s able to manufacture shots with half a bag’s worth of clubs. This is actually an area where Michiko is ahead of them, because her limitations force her to be creative and take what circumstances offer her – like putting from 30 yards off the green when she knew her nerves would trip her up trying to finesse a pitch shot (it looks like something you’d see in the British Open).
There is one and only one dodgy moment for Tonbo, where she lets her anxiety over how unconventional her game is mess with her head. But Igaiga’s admonition to be herself and Shima-san’s sage advice snaps her out of it. That was the only part of the ep that kind of rang false for me – those two brats were won over too easily. In the end Tonbo posts a 5-under par 67, and astonishingly ends the first round 5 shots clear of the field with Hinoki in second-place. I’m not sure how this event works – some amateur events switch to match play for the final rounds (with the stroke play portion determining the seeds), but this one might just have the scores carry over and stroke play continue.
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