Reigning Women’s US Open champion Yuka Saso is expected to choose Japanese citizenship before she turns 22 on June 20, 2023.
Under Japanese law, dual citizens like the 20-year-old Saso are required to select their nationality when they reach the age of 22.
“It is true that I chose the Japanese citizenship,” Saso said during a press conference on the eve of the Toto Japan Classic in Shiga Kyodo News reported.
“I thought about it and I will eventually choose it,” said Saso, whose Tokyo Olympic campaign will now prove to be her last under the Philippine tri-colors.
“(But) No matter which one I choose, I am both Japanese and Filipino,” she said.
Saso’s biggest claim to fame was when the Filipino-Japanese sensation became the first and only athlete from the Philippines to win a golf major following her stunning victory in the Women’s US Open in June.
Prior to this, Saso has won has won on almost all levels of her career, from local tournaments hosted by her sports godfather Enrique K. Razon and International Container Terminals Services, Inc., to the World Junior Golf, the Asian Games, the LPGA Japan Tour and the LPGA.
The Fil-Japanese made a killing at the Japanese Tour, where she is currently 10th on the money list with earnings of ¥97,721,942 (P42 million), even though she has left the tour for the more lucrative LPGA, with the US Open her crowning glory as it netted her a whopping $1 million prize.
The win was a validation of her second Athlete of the Year honor from the Philippine Sportswriters Association in the last three years, but the first time as an individual awardee as she previously shared the accolade with fellow golfers Bianca Pagdanganan and Lois Kaye Go, along with weightlifer Hidilyn Diaz during the 2018 edition of the annual event following their gold-medal romp in the Jakarta Asian Games.
Entering 2021, Saso ranked 45th in the world. After only 10 months, she is now at no. 6, the youngest in the Top 10.
Born in San Ildefonso, Bulacan to a Filipino mother Fritzie, and Japanese father Masakazu, Saso acquired her love for golf from her dad.
The family left the Philippines when she was four, but after living in Japan for four years, Saso pleaded her parents to allow her to play golf.
Thinking that she can excel better in the Philippines, her parents came back to the country, where she was homeschooled until she graduated from high school.