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Texas Tech cheerleader, AKA 'Viral Masters Girl,' lands modeling gig
As Texas A&M's Sam Bennett has already proven, contending at the Masters, on national television, as an amateur, can earn you big-time rewards (thanks to NIL). As Texas Tech's Aaliyah Kikumoto has proven, just being at the Masters as a fan, and happening to get some TV time, can also pay dividends, literally.
Now, you may be asking, who is Aaliyah Kikumoto? To quickly refresh your memory, she's the "Viral Masters Girl" who caught Twitter's attention when she was shown behind Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm as they waited on the group ahead of them at the par-3 16th on Sunday at Augusta National. As we know, Koepka and Rahm waited quite a long time, and cameras captured their arms-folded waiting, which allowed Kikumoto to get a ton of screen time and ultimately go viral:
With so many creeps folks at home watching, Kikumoto's identity was quickly revealed. She's a 19-year-old Texas Tech cheerleader who was attending the Masters with her father Charles, who confirmed it was them on Twitter. Aaliyah also confirmed it was her in a viral TikTok post from Double Bogeys Only that was captioned "Somehow I fell in love with someone I only saw for 15 seconds." She also revealed it was her in her own TikTok video which has 4.5 million(!!) views:
Those 15 seconds have proven to be unbelievably valuable for the TTU student. Late last week, Kikumoto landed a modeling job with BSX, a youth-oriented fashion brand:
Apparently, she can play a little bit, too:
@aaliyahkikumoto some clips from the other day🤩🤩 #mastersgirl #masters2023 #themasters #golf #golfgirl ♬ Aces - dkj
Prior to her viral moment, Kikumoto still had a large Instagram following of over 14,000. But that number has skyrocketed to 43,800 as of this writing. In her first post-Masters post where she thanked "Ho. 16" Kikumoto received over 13,000 likes when she previously never had more than 3,100:
That, folks, is the power of the Masters. And of TV. And of the internet. A true perfect storm of virality. All you can do is tip your cap.