From afar, Mao Saigo’s celebratory leap into the lake Sunday at the Chevron Championship looked relatively routine.
Except it wasn’t.
“I’m not really a good swimmer,” Saigo revealed later through an interpreter. “When I went inside, it was deep, and at first I thought I was going to drown.”
The 23-year-old Saigo, who outlasted four other players in a one-hole playoff for her first LPGA win and major title, said she was “too shy” to jump by herself, so she asked two other women, her manager and a Japanese television reporter, to jump with her. From the looks of it, none of them were strong swimmers.
Saigo’s caddie, Jeffrey Snow, and two male trainers followed a little over 10 seconds later to rescue those struggling to tread water, which is about 5 feet deep at the end of the dock, and pull them safely back to shore.
“Every time I broke the surface, I got pulled under again,” Snow told Golfweek, adding that he asked Saigo earlier in the day if she could swim and she replied, “No.”
When the championship was played at Mission Hills, winners would jump into Poppie’s Pond, a man-made body of water that was more like a swimming pool. Now, champions leap into a dredged lake with murky water and alligator netting.
Back on dry land, Saigo was asked how she planned to continue her celebration.
“I want my manager to cook something really good,” Saigo responded, “and then give me some rest.”
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