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By John Holmes
PGATOUR.com Interactive Producer

DULUTH, Ga. -- As might be expected at a PGA TOUR event in the Atlanta area, the AT&T Classic field is packed with players boasting Georgia connections, including five ex-Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and three former Georgia Bulldogs.

(WireImage)

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

Ryuji Imada on Friday

Birdies 7 Pars 10 Double Bogeys 1 Driving Accuracy 71 Driving Distance 278 Putts 26

• More stats, click here

Line all the good ol' Peach State professionals up, though, and one stands out -- Ryuji Imada, a 5-foot-8, 150-pound native of Japan. But he's a 'Dawg through and through, as the playful barks he draws from the Georgia faithful lining the ropes at the TPC Sugarloaf proves.

"The last couple of days, they get pretty rowdy," he smiled.

Imada's giving those Bulldog backers plenty to bark about. He eagled his final hole Thursday to close out a 5-under 67 that put him in a tie for second overnight, and followed up Friday with another 67 that tied him for the clubhouse lead.

Coincidentally, both those rounds contained a double bogey, and he's still shaking his head over the unforced error that cost him two shots, and the outright lead, Friday morning.

Imada hit his tee shot on the 558-yard, par-5 fourth hole with a 3-wood, having decided to play it as a three-shot hole. He followed up with a 4-iron that left him an easy sand wedge into the green. Or, so he thought.

"I thought I had 76 yards to the front, but I actually had 97 or 98," he said, shaking his head. "My caddie was raking a bunker behind me, so I walked off the yardage -- but I walked it off from the wrong sprinkler head."

He made a perfect swing with the sand wedge -- and watched his ball plop into the pond in front of the green.

"It was disappointing that I made a miscalculation with the yardage," he said. "But it wasn't a bad shot."

It also helped that Imada, who started his second round on the back nine, was already 6 under for the day -- he had four birdies in a row leading up that point, in fact -- so the double bogey didn't exactly wreck his round. But still, his ability to look at the bright side seemed impressive.

"Oh," he said, smiling, "you don't know what's going on in my head."

Seriously, though, Imada admitted that a setback such as sinking a ball might have led to sailing a club in his younger days, but he learned to control himself as he matured as a golfer.

"You now, I've been through times where I've slammed clubs, broken stuff, but it really doesn't do any good," he said. "In eight years of playing professional golf, I guess I've learned to tone it down a little bit. It still comes out once in a while, though."

Something else that's come out in recent years is Imada's rising status on the PGA TOUR. He's made the cut in 10 of 15 starts this season, including his last four events in a row, and is currently 74th in the FedExCup points, though he'll jump much higher up the list if he can finish strong.

A win this weekend would cap a long climb that began in Imada's native Mihara, Japan, where he first got into golf as a 7-year-old tagging along with his older brother. At age 14, he moved to Tampa to play junior golf, though his family remained in Japan and still lives there. Despite relocating halfway around the world, Imada thrived in junior golf, becoming the 1995 American Junior Golf Association Player of the Year.

Imada went on to win six big amateur events, and earned his place in Georgia athletic history in 1999 as a member of the first Bulldog team to win an NCAA championship (the 2005 team also won the national title). He also finished second to Luke Donald for medalist honors and was named a first team All-American.

Imada left school after his sophomore season, determined to make it big. He qualified for both the Japan Tour and the Nationwide Tour in 2000, and chose to play in America because he saw it as his quickest route to the PGA TOUR.

"Coming out of college, I thought it was going to be easy because I was always playing well," he said. "I won my first event on the Nationwide Tour (the 2000 Virginia Beach Open) in about two months, and I was thinking it was going to be easy; I was going to walk though the Nationwide Tour and be on the PGA TOUR. But it wasn't as easy as I thought."

For the first time in his life in golf, Imada couldn't take the next step up. He played the Nationwide Tour through the 2004 season, when he finished third on the money list to qualify for the 2005 PGA TOUR. He finished 121st on the money list in 2005, then improved to 92nd last year.

Imada has yet to win on the PGA TOUR, but he tied for ninth in the recent EDS Byron Nelson Championship and has put together an encouraging track record in the AT&T Classic. He made his first TOUR cut at TPC Sugarloaf in 2002, tied for 15th in 2005 and tied for 10th place last year.

After being a frequent winner as a junior and in college, Imada hasn't won since the 2004 season on the Nationwide Tour. A victory here, though, would be something to bark about.