ERIN, Wis. — Mao Saigo’s caddie called his shot roughly a year ago. As a one-week fill-in during last June’s Dow Championship, Jeffrey Snow sat next to Mao during a break in their pro-am. He’d seen her for just a few days, but that was plenty.
“I said, ‘Mao, I’m telling ya,’” he recalled Friday, “‘you might not win in 2024, but you’re gonna win in 2025. You’re that good of a player.’
“And she did.”
It came at last month’s Chevron Championship, the first major on the LPGA calendar. It’s happening again at the U.S. Women’s Open.
Saigo is a 23-year-old burgeoning star from Japan, which, on a tour played (and watched) largely in the United States, can limit her exposure in America. English-speaking golf media are often inclined to cover English-speaking golfers, and Saigo — like many Japanese players — conducts her press conferences with a translator, which can make those Q&As a bit disjointed. Her Wikipedia page tells you just two things: where she’s from and what she’s won — six times in Japan, once in America. Very little has been written about her besides the fact that she performed the traditional victory leap into the pond at the Chevron … without knowing how to swim.
That win elevated her to a new level in the sport. Only 141 women have won major championships. Only 59 have won two. But before she adds to the tally … who is she, exactly?
“I’ve never seen a player prepare the way she does,” Snow said Friday afternoon. He’s looped for Marina Alex and Celine Boutier in the past. “She does a lot of the work that a caddie would normally do.”
Before they began shared responsibilities, Saigo was charting ridges on greens and measuring slopes.
“When I started spending more time around her,” Snow says, “I’m thinking, Mao, your practice rounds are taking a long time, and you’re doing work you shouldn’t be doing. You should be chipping and putting, that kind of stuff.”
But Saigo is intense. “All business,” Snow said. And trust takes time. Before last year, Saigo had only ever used Japanese caddies. They teamed up at the end of 2024, just in time for Saigo to claim Rookie of the Year honors. Her English is “decent,” Snow says, but she doesn’t need a caddie that keeps up the chat for 18 holes. She just needs information, going about her work, at times, in a bit of a bubble. And why wouldn’t you when you’re playing in the group behind the Super Group.
Friday’s crowd at the U.S. Women’s Open leaned heavily in the direction of Nelly Korda, Lexi Thompson and Charley Hull until late in morning when it became clear the round of the week was taking place behind them. Saigo carded a 66 with a single, absolutely maddening bogey. On the par-5 14th, she struck her approach so perfectly that it one-hop rattled the flagstick, kicking back into a greenside bunker. She called it “unlucky,” “not my mistake,” and “a missed birdie chance.”
Correct on all three. With any other result, she’s holding a four- or five-shot lead. Instead, it’s just three.
“Her game kind of revolves around her driver,” Snow said. “If she’s driving it well and she gets confidence with the driver, then she shoots scores like this on a course like this because her irons are so good.”
The stats back it up. Saigo tops the field in Strokes Gained: Approach, even with that flag-rattling wedge.
A few caddies have joked to Snow that only The Saigo Slam is in play this year, in the impossible world where she just keeps winning majors. But that first one loosened her up just a tiny bit, Snow says. Practice rounds have become more relaxed. She’s altered her playing schedule a bit, dropping a few events now that she won a big one. But otherwise, she’s very private and likes her golf a certain way.
Whereas most pros decorate their corporatized bags with personalized headcovers — maybe a favorite dog breed or the mascot of their alma mater — Saigo is as business as it gets. Her woods are protected by five black and white covers with the newest Titleist logo. She’s rocking a new putter this week and needed to draw (with a Sharpie) an extra visual alignment aid on it. When a drizzling rain arrived Friday afternoon, she made sure Snow was covering it up.
“She’s very, very particular,” he said.
If there’s one piece of personality in there, it lies in the shield Snow used to keep that sharpie line clean. Saigo’s putter cover has one word on it — “Champs” — and is mostly pink. Her favorite color.
