Japan's Best Paired With Mickelson

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- There is a striking liveliness to Shigeki Maruyama that leaps over the barrier of a Japanese-English dictionary.

One of Shigeki Maruyama's few misses this week occurred on the seventh hole Friday, where he came up short on his birdie putt. (John Mummert/USGA)

There is his smile, which doesn't spread across his face so much as pounce on every square inch of it.

And his energy could solve a blackout or two. As he spoke with the Japanese media at the U.S. Open Friday evening, he stood erect, all 5-feet-7 of him -- but his hands never stopped moving.

Maruyama swung his right hand up and down, scraping his fingertips against his left hand. He interlocked his fingers. He cracked his knuckles. He swung his left hand into his right palm a few times, then balled both hands into fists and knocked them against one another.

Most importantly, his personality draws people to him the way a magnet draws to a refrigerator.

Chris DiMarco clapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand and said, "Great playing!"

Isao Aoki, the Japanese golfing icon who finished second to Jack Nicklaus in the 1980 U.S. Open, walked by. He stopped behind Maruyama and collapsed his knees from behind. A few moments later, Thomas Bjorn of Denmark did the same thing.

Three friends, three continents, three very big smiles in return. A friend from a fourth continent, Ernie Els of South Africa, tried to explain Maruyama as a two-time Presidents Cup teammate.

"He was great," Els said, "always smiling, always laughing. I didn't always understand what he said. When he smiles, you just smile with him, go along with it. He's a good guy. He has a good heart."

While his first-round co-leaders, Jay Haas and Angel Cabrera, slipped backward, Maruyama remained in the lead. A bogey on his 36th hole, only his second of the Open, gave Maruyama a 68 on Friday and dropped him into a tie for the second-round lead with Phil Mickelson at six-under 134.

The final pairing Saturday at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club will match Japan's Favorite with America's Favorite.

"I can expect everybody's rooting for Phil," Maruyama said through the interpreter he employs, Taka Yamamoto. "I've played the first two days at the Masters with Phil. Everybody is saying, 'Phil! Phil! Phil!'"

Maruyama, listening to the translation, stuck a finger in each ear and stood like a statue.

"I'll get earplugs tomorrow," Yamamoto said, concluding the translation.

"He's able to converse with the players during the round," Yamamoto said a few minutes earlier. "It's hard for him to express his thinking in interviews. He understands what you guys say. It's translating what he says to you."

Maruyama knows enough English that he can sing "Tears in Heaven." Maruyama promised to sing it Sunday if he wins, which may be the first time that Eric Clapton's heartrending ode to his late son would ever be employed as a celebratory anthem.

Sometimes, he answered directly, as when he was asked who was bigger in Japan, he or Tiger Woods, with whom he played the first two rounds.

"Of course, me," Maruyama replied. He paused. "Only in Japan," he said, and everyone laughed.

And if he wins the Open, what will be the reaction at home?

"I can't imagine," he said through Yamamoto. "Big parade."

His golf, like his personality, needs no translation. Maruyama has spent two rounds doing exactly what someone who wants to win the Open has to do. He has hit 20 of 28 fairways. He has hit 28 of 36 greens, and of the eight he missed, he birdied two of those holes. Maruyama made a 30-foot putt from the back fringe of the 10th hole Thursday, and holed out a sand wedge at the 17th hole Friday.

Maruyama, unlike the top Japanese golfers who preceded him, chose to make a career on the PGA Tour. He came over in 2000, and has won in each of the last three years, a feat that only four other golfers have accomplished (Woods, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard and Retief Goosen, if you're looking to win a bar bet).

"It takes about three years to be comfortable," Maruyama said through Yamamoto, "to pick up the language, get used to the food. After 9/11, airport security was very strict, but I started having Toyota as a sponsor, so I can get their jet."

Still, he and his wife Mizuho have a home in Los Angeles, as well as Chiba, Japan. Maruyama nearly won the Nissan Open at Riviera this year, losing in a rainy final round to Mike Weir.

But Maruyama has proven he can play in the clutch. He finished fifth at the 2002 British Open, just out of the four-man playoff that Els won. Maruyama is also 6-2 in Presidents Cup play, including a memorable match in 1998 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club, when he and Craig Parry defeated Woods and Fred Couples, 1 up. Maruyama and the equally height-challenged Parry celebrated with a leaping hug.

If Maruyama hangs on and leads the next two rounds, he not only would be the first Asian to win the Open, but he would be the first wire-to-wire champion not named Woods since Tony Jacklin in 1970.

No translation needed there, either.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer at ESPN.com