Early Career
Okamoto was born in Akitsu, Hiroshima now part of Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan. In her youth and early 20s, she was a softball player. She was the star pitcher on the Japanese national champion in 1971. Her club team was owned by the textile company Daiwabo, where Okamoto worked. The company owned a golf facility next door, and when she was 22, Okamoto finally decided to start playing. Although she pitched left-handed, she learned golf right-handed. She would join the LPGA of Japan Tour in 1973. Just three years later, at age 25, she won the Mizuno Corporation Tournament. In 1979, at age 28, Okamoto won the Japan LPGA Championship, and in 1981 she won eight times in Japan and topped the LPGA of Japan money list.
Read more about this topic: Ayako Okamoto
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)