‘Smiling Cinderella’ leads Women’s Scottish Open

Golfers can often display the kind of inscrutable countenance that would make the fizzog of the Sphinx of Giza look positively animated.

Not so, Hinako Shibuno. With a constant, glowing beam you tend to get with a LED bulb, the 24-year-old from Japan famously earned the nickname “the Smiling Cinderella” during her giggling, grinning march to glory in the AIG Women’s Open at Woburn in 2019.

Here at the Freed Group Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links, Shibuno was still smiling. She had every reason to be, of course. A delightfully assembled eight-under 64 on a largely bright and increasingly breezy Ayrshire day thrust her into a two-shot lead over Madelene Sagstrom. Local tour rookie Louise Duncan, meanwhile, was the pick of the Scots on one-under after a spirited late rally.

Shibuno’s smile may remain but it seems the twinkling moniker has gone. “Nobody calls me the Smiling Cinderella anymore,” said Shibuno with something of a wistful, well, smile.

Presumably, the fickle fans in Japan, who tend to shower successful female golfers with the adulation you would get during a ticker-tape parade, have focussed their affections on someone else. Shibuno has not won since that wonder of Woburn while a niggling finger injury has hindered her progress. Living with the expectation that comes with being a major champion in her golf-mad homeland adds another layer of professional pressure.

The Smiling Cinderella may be no more but there is a new nickname. “Lydia Ko called me the Assassin once which I like better than Smiling Cinderella,” added Shibuno. She certainly had her sights fixed on Dundonald yesterday.

Before the wind started to really get going, Shibuno made hay while the sun keeked through some light clouds. Starting on the 10th, Shibuno made an early statement of intent with a birdie on her first hole then bolstered her assault with four birdies on the spin from the 13th. “I surprised myself with four in a row,” she said of that profitable push. Shibuno then finished with a flourish, picking up birdies at three of her last four holes to streak away from the field.

Shibuno missed the halfway cut in last year’s championship here. “The course looked different this time, a little…