Ishikawa heads top class Open field
BY Bruce Young | Japan Tour | 2010 Japan Open | Preview | 13 Oct 2010
The most prestigious event on the Japan Golf Tour calendar, the Japan Open, is being played this week at the Aichi Country Club in Nagoya.
With the equal richest purse of the season, the event is not only rich in prize-money but also in history having first been played in 1927. Foreigners have won the event on only nine occasions in that time, the last of those coming in 2006 when Australian Paul Sheehan was victorious.
By all accounts the course set-up this year is typical of those previously set up by the Japan Golf Association for this event ensuring a tough and demanding layout.
All of the Japan Golf Tour’s leading players are in the field with money list leader, Ryo Ishikawa, seeking his first Japan Open title. So too are other leading players from this season’s money list Hiroyuki Fujita, Kyung Tae Kim and Takahashi Kanemoto.
Current number four this season Toru Taniguchi has won this event twice but although winning earlier in the season he has not played well the last few weeks and will need to improve sharply.
Brilliant youngsters Shunsuke Sonoda and Yuta Ikeda will be keen to claim their own National Open title but Australian Brendan Jones, a prolific winner of money and titles in recent seasons in Japan might also be a chance.
In one of the smaller Australasian representations in recent times, only Paul Sheehan and Chris Campbell will join Jones in the field.
