Former golf prodigy Tadd Fujikawa is the pickleball pro of Sea Island

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Tadd Fujikawa will not sweat making the cut at The RSM Classic at Sea Island this week, and while others worry about staying out of the rough at the last official PGA TOUR event of 2022, Fujikawa will preach staying out of the kitchen.

The head pickleball pro at Sea Island, Fujikawa is no longer a golfer – at least for now.

“I taught a little bit of golf, so the teaching part of it transferred,” Fujikawa, 31, said on a warm fall day as he hosted the PGA TOUR at the bustling Sea Island pickleball complex.

One man in his time plays many parts, the Bard wrote, and so it is with Fujikawa. You may recall his smile and uppercut as he eagled the 18th hole to advance to the weekend at the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii (T20), his hometown tournament. At barely 16 (and barely 5 feet tall) he was the youngest in a half-century to make a PGA TOUR cut.

Fujikawa won the Hawaii Pearl Open later that year and turned pro, moving with his mom to Sea Island to be closer to the best instruction, but it was a grind. Playing on sponsor exemptions, he got 16 PGA TOUR starts from 2006-17, made five cuts, and never found his footing.

“I was working with an instructor and making changes,” he said, “and it got to the point where I was in transition between the two, my old stuff and my new stuff, which wasn’t all the way there yet. It was mainly physical, mechanics issues, and then it became mental.”

The high point of Fujikawa’s career may have been 2009, when he got four TOUR starts and made three cuts. He shot a third-round 62 and was tied for sixth through 54 holes of the Sony that year; alas, he shot a final-round 73 to finish T32. Soon the exemptions dried up, and he mostly struggled to find it on the minitours in the Carolinas and PGA TOUR Canada.

His mood suffered, but not just because he was struggling on the course. Coming out on World Suicide Prevention Day in 2018 helped, as did playing tennis to take his mind off golf. He could not have known what was in store when he first picked up a pickleball paddle in March of 2021.

“I was so hooked,” he said, a common refrain in this rapidly growing sport. “I initially tried to play both, and then my tennis game got all messed up. So, I committed to pickleball for a month to see how it felt. I thought maybe it might wear off, but after that it was all pickleball.”

He played singles and doubles, in tournaments and with friends. As fate would have it, Sea Island was putting the finishing touches on its new pickleball courts and needed a head pro.

Trey Weiss, head of tennis and racquet sports at Sea Island, mentioned the job to Fujikawa.

“He has great hand-eye coordination; I think that’s transferred over from golf,” Weiss said. “It’s a lot of the same type of movements when we talk about body-wight transfer. He’s a great athlete, great footwork. For us as a club and as a resort the biggest skillset that’s transferred over is his people skills, because he had so much experience from golf. Our membership loves him. We have guests doing repeat lessons with him because of his personality.

“He’s got a great story, great disposition,” Weiss continued. “From working as hard as he did with golf, he’s able to share that with people on the pickleball court.”

Several sports celebrities have fallen hard for pickleball, among them Masters champions Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler, who took on tennis player John Isner and retired NBA player Dirk Nowitzki in a celebrity pro-am match in Frisco, Texas, last month. But Fujikawa has taken it to the next level. He began teaching after failing to get through the first stage of Q school last year, and to watch him play, you’d never know he’s as new to the sport as most everyone else.

“I picked it up pretty fast,” he said. “I think golfers can transition over to pickleball more easily than tennis, which is tough because the ball bounces so high.”

He lives alone these days – his mom, Lori, went back to Hawaii shortly before the pandemic reached America – and likes having a steady paycheck. He likes being “part of a family” at Sea Island. He is not a big golf watcher and will avoid The RSM this week, which is just as well, as he’ll probably be too busy to attend, anyway. He’s giving 15-20 lessons per week.

“I’ve played professional golf for 15 years pretty much fulltime,” Fujikawa said. “And having that little bit of break and off-time away from it has been very nice for sure.”

Will he ever pick up the clubs again? He gets playing privileges as an employee at Sea Island, but as Fujikawa continues to settle into his new pickleball role, he finds himself not using them.

“I’m just taking it day by day,” he said, “and trying to enjoy life.”