An unsteady breeze cooled Ai Miyazato’s face earlier this month at the 11th hole of the Sybase Classic in northern New Jersey. As the 22-year-old L.P.G.A. veteran from Okinawa approached the green, dozens of Japanese photographers jostled for position on the springy grass.

Brandishing lenses wide enough to fit a NASA telescope, they zoomed in on Miyazato as if she were a specimen on a slide. With every smile and glimpse of teeth, their clickety-click became more intense.
   
It was the Sybase’s opening round, and Miyazato was making a charge. She had already sunk two birdies and was 12 feet from a third. Ignoring the treacherous wind and the crescendo of camera clicks, she calmly, methodically lined up her putt. When she knocked it home, her media gallery—which was about double the size of her spectator gallery—erupted in polite applause.
   
By the time Miyazato birdied the 18th hole, she had carded a 3-under 69 to sit two strokes behind the leader, Annika Sörenstam. After signing her scorecard, a confused elderly spectator asked, "Are you anybody?"
   
"Ai Miyazato," Miyazato said.
   
The fan peered into Miyazato’s eyes and said, "No, but you’re close."
   
All of 5-foot-1—and that’s being generous—Miyazato joined the U.S. women’s tour in 2006 with considerable fanfare. She was heralded as the L.P.G.A.’s next big small thing.
   
Miyazato had entered her first pro tournament at 14, and three years later became the first amateur in 30 years to win on the Japanese women’s circuit. At 18, she became the youngest player to win on the J.L.P.G.A. tour. She had five victories as a rookie in 2004, collecting 15 top-10 finishes and more than $1 million in 22 events.
   
In 2005, she racked up six more victories and another cool million on Japanese turf, including the hallowed Japan Open. A tour-record crowd of 32,000 showed up on the final day of that tournament, nearly all of them shivering with "Ai-chan fever."
   
Miyazato was not just the most popular female golfer in Japan, she was the most popular golfer period. When she won the Japanese L.P.G.A. in Tomakomai during the same week Tiger Woods led wire-to-wire at the Dunlop Phoenix in Miyazaki, the TV ratings for her triumph dwarfed his, drawing four times as many viewers.
   
"The Japanese believe Ai should win every time she plays on the U.S. tour," says Sonoko Funakoshi, a reporter for Daily Sports in Tokyo. "They expect her to. Japanese like people who appear small and weak, but [are] actually aggressive and strong. Inside, Ai has spirit of battle. Outside, she has spirit of happy."
   
Indeed, Miyazato projects happiness like a lighthouse. She endorses everything from chocolate to tires, and was sponsored by Suntory whiskey three years before she was old enough to drink it.
   
She has been celebrated in ice—a 50-foot snow sculpture of her face towered over a winter festival in Sapporo—and commemorated on a special-issue postage stamp, in the tradition of baseball stars Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, who is Japan’s most beloved athlete.

After cleaning up on her home tour in 2005, she could have stayed in Japan and been the big fish in a small pond like 31-year-old Yuri Fudoh, the J.L.P.G.A.’s leading money winner from 2000 to 2005. Five years ago, Fudoh—who rarely ventures outside the Land of the Rising Sun—became the first player to win 10 tournaments in a year and earned more prize money than the top male player on the Japan Golf Tour. Over the last 12 years, she has won 43 events and pocketed nearly $10 million.

Miyazato chose the small fish-big pond route by joining the Stateside tour. In late 2005, the shot-making shogun set off for the Home of the Brave to earn her exempt card for the 2006 L.P.G.A. season.
   
She enrolled in Q School and graduated magna cum laude—finishing under par for five of the six qualifying rounds, and an astonishing 12 shots better than her closest competitor. It was the tour’s largest Q School margin of victory ever.
   
Miyazato seemed poised to become Japan’s first true crossover star in the women’s game, just as Hall of Famer Pak Se Ri and 2006 L.P.G.A. Rookie of the Year Lee Seon Hwa have been for South Korea.
   
But her three seasons on U.S. soil have not been an unqualified romp. Over 21 events in her maiden campaign, she made 19 cuts and recorded seven top-10 finishes—her best a third-place tie at the McDonald’s L.P.G.A. Championship. Miyazato was 22nd in the rankings and earned $532,053. The following year she finished in the top 10 seven times, crossed the $1 million threshold in career earnings, and vaulted to 17th in the rankings.
   
This season she has struggled mightily, missing the cut in three of 10 starts, and placing no better than 14th. She blew up in the final round of the Sybase Classic: Miyazato’s 76 tied her for 42nd and earned her a meager $7,756 payday. She’s now winless in 65 L.P.G.A. tournaments.
   
"Obviously, Ai is a great player," says the obviously great Sörenstam. "For someone so petite, her tee shots travel surprising distances and always right down the middle of the fairway."

Still, Miyazato’s drives don’t measure up to those of the L.P.G.A. elite. Plying an extra-long driver that comes up to her shoulder, she averages 242.9 yards out of the box, about 30 yards behind leader Sophie Gustafson.

Miyazato’s swing may be the most languid in golf. "Ai putts beautifully, and there’s no sense of urgency to her game," Sörenstam says. "She’s going to win over here. It’s just a matter of time."

Miyazato, meanwhile, has been eclipsed by a countrywoman, Momoko Ueda.
   
Last November the 21-year-old Kumamoto native carded an albatross (double-eagle) on the final day of Mizuno Classic in Shima, her nation’s only L.P.G.A. tournament. Ueda became the first Japanese winner in nine years, and only the 16th non-L.P.G.A. member in history to win a tour event.

This year the 5-foot-3 L.P.G.A. rookie has two top-10 finishes and nearly double Miyazato’s prize money.

"Ai is still a good bet to turn into an international star," Sörenstam says. "In golf, though, there is no sure thing."
   
The only certainty at this week’s Ginn Tribute in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, is that Sörenstam will be chasing her 73th career title, while Miyazato will be chased by camera crews.