Visa Taiheiyo Masters next in Japan

The Japan Golf Tour begins is stretch of traditional season ending events this week when the time honoured Visa Taiheiyo Masters is played at the Taiheiyo Club’s Gotemba Course in the shadows of Mt Fuji south of Tokyo.

This week’s event is followed by the Dunlop Phoenix, The Casio World Open and the final event of 2010, the Golf Nippon Series.

The tournament has regularly brought together the best of the Japan Golf Tour but has often attracted several leading International players. This week, however, with conflicting events in Singapore, Florida and Melbourne the event is essentially made up of Japan Tour players but that will not stop it from being a great attraction for local fans.

This season’s multiple winners on the Japan Golf Tour, Kyung Tae Kim, Ryo Ishikawa and Yuta Ikeda are the likely favourites but there are many others whose credentials suggest they could easily be in the mix on Sunday.

One of those is Australian Brendan Jones who won this event in 2007 with a massive eagle putt across the last green to defeat Toru Taniguchi with Adam Scott in third position.

Jones rallied back from a slow start to last week’s HSBC event in China and as the recent winner of the Panasonic Open on the Japan Golf Tour he should do well.

Other Australasians in this 84 player field are Chris Campbell, Steve Conran, Eddie Lee and david Smail.