Hiratsuka wins Mitsubishi Cup as those around him fall
BY Bruce Young | Japan Tour | 2004 Mitsubishi Diamond Cup Golf | Wrap | 30 May 2004
It has taken a while for Tetsuji Hiratsuka to get his 2004 season under way, but he did so today with a superb five shot win at the Mitsubishi Diamond Cup tournament. Hiratsuka enjoyed a brilliant year in 2003, finishing second on the money list and recorded fourteen top tens and eleven top fives in twenty nine starts on the Japan Golf Tour.
A seventeenth place finish last week at the Munsingwear Open KSB Cup, gave an indication that Hiratsuka was at last finding some of that 2003 form once again and now with this win behind him, only his second on the Japan Golf Tour, it appears another good year is in store.
In the end, what looked like developing into a tense battle over the closing holes did not eventuate, as Hiratsuka’s nearest rival, Hideto Tanihara, fell victim to a closing stretch that would see him drop five shots over the final six holes including a triple bogey at the 17th. When the two golfers, who were playing together, reached the eleventh tee, the difference was just two after Tanihara had eagled the tenth. Tanhiara’s first big mistake came at the par four, 13th which he double bogeyed and the gap was four. From that point on Hiratsuka had the luxury of cruising to the finish line with nobody close enough to apply any pressure.
Although a member of the Japan Golf Tour since 1999, Hiratsuka has had only the one win previously when he won the Japan Series at the end of 2003. The Japan Series is effectively the Japan Golf Tour’s Championship bringing together the leading players on the money list.
Hidemasa Hoshino surged into second with a run of four birdies over the closing seven holes and edged out the reigning Japan PGA Champion, South Korean, S.K. Ho, for that place, although still five behind Hiratsuka. Toru Taniguchi and Hideto Tanihara shared fourth, one behind Ho.
Craig Jones was the leading Australasian in a share of sixth place, his best finish of the year in Japan and earned the equivalent of $A45,000. Jones too had a struggle over the closing stages. His bogey on the 16th and double bogey at the 17th could hardly have come at a worse time, costing him the possibility of second place after he had worked himself into contention early in his round. Still, it provides a boost for the Queenslander in what has been an ordinary season to date and Jones, who finished fourth behind Peter Lonard at the Australian Open late last year, has found some form.
David Smail also had his best finish of the year with a 10th today with Scott Laycock finishing 57th.
The Japan Golf Tour now heads to Sendai two hours north of Tokyo by train for the JCB Sendai Classic.
