CBS
Aaliyah Kikumoto, the Texas Tech cheerleader who went viral when she was spotted on TV in the gallery during last year’s Masters and earned her the moniker “Masters Girl,” returned for another round this year, but it didn’t go smoothly.
Kikumoto, who actually has a heck of a golf swing herself, first gained the attention of golf fans when a video of her standing behind the golfers on the 16th tee box during the broadcast blew up on TikTok.
It didn’t take long for internet sleuths to identify her. Of course, they had quite a bit of help from Aaliyah Kikumoto’s own parents.
Her mother A.J. and her father Charles both shared multiple posts on social media, proudly revealing that it was their daughter who went viral.
Yes, enjoying easter at the masters with my TTU pom squad hat on. Our daughter Aaliyah has the green masters hat on and goes to Tech. Wreck em! pic.twitter.com/5nq99dTi06
— Charles Kikumoto (@CharlesKikumoto) April 10, 2023
Taking full advantage of her newfound fame, Aaliyah Kikumoto then attended the PGA Championship and was reportedly “swarmed” by fans at the event.
The summer fun over, Kikumoto returned to Texas Tech for her sophomore year in the fall and resumed her duties as a Red Raiders cheerleader and building up her social media fanbase.
Fast forward to this past week and yep, there she was again at Augusta National wearing her now trademark Masters cap.
“Shes back!!” Aaliyah wrote on TikTok.
@aaliyahkikumoto shes back‼️‼️#Inverted #themasters #masters2024 #golf #mastersgirl #themastersgirl ♬ shes back – moura
“Feels so good to be back,” Kikumoto captioned another video from Georgia.
@aaliyahkikumoto feels so good to be back☺️☺️☺️ #Inverted #themasters #masters2024 #mastersgirl #themastersgirl #augusta #golf #golftiktok ♬ Praise Jah In The Moonlight – YG Marley
While she appears very happy to have made her triumphant return to the tournament, getting there was rather difficult, according to her dad Charles, who sent an email to Outkick.
“As you can imagine there are no direct flights from Lubbock to Augusta so our daughter had to fly from Lubbock to Dallas to Charlotte to Augusta and was supposed to land just before midnight on Friday night – also on American Airlines,” Charles wrote.
“Her flight in Dallas gets delayed with issues (not weather related) so she misses her flight to Augusta,” he continued. “She gets a text that she is rebooked from Charlotte to Augusta on Sunday versus being there as originally booked on Friday night.”
He ended up driving the three hours from Augusta to Charlotte, picking her up at 12:20 a.m. and returning to August around 4 a.m.
“So it is Saturday morning and Masters Girl is now here on Augusta grounds and with a couple hours of sleep we can’t complain.”
“Catch me at the clubhouse,” the 20-year-old Aaliyah wrote on Instagram after finally arriving.
Several fans on on Instagram said they also saw her watching the players teeing off on the first hole, so it appears that it was definitely worth all of the effort.