Japan Tour plays Tsuruya Open
BY Bruce Young | Japan Tour | 2011 Tsuruya Open | Preview | 19 Apr 2011
The Japan Golf Tour moves south from the Nagoya region to the Hyogo Prefecture for this week’s Tsuruya Open, the second event of their 2011 schedule.
The tournament is again played at the Yamanohara Golf Club in Hyogo, the origins of the event going back to 1994 when the amazing Tommy Nakajima won the 43rd of his 48 Japan Golf Tour victories.
Hiroyuki Fujita will defend the title he won in a playoff last year over Toru Taniguchi and he will again tee it up and after a solid start to the season when 12th last week at the Token Homemate Cup he is expected to do well again.
So too is Ryo Ishikawa who may well have been hung-over from his Masters effort when he teed it up last week and faded over the final round. Ishikawa gets another chance this week to add to the prize-money fund he has set up for the victims of the March earthquake and tsunami. Ishikawa has not played this event well previously however and that may be of some concern.
Yuta Ikeda is perhaps the next best of the Japanese stars but was pretty ordinary in his recent visit to the US against much stronger opposition than the he will face this week. Back on more familiar territory he finished 8th last week and is likely to do well again.
One golfer who has played the tournament well though is the Australian Brendan Jones who is a three time winner and twice been 4th. He finished 4th last week in the season opening event and is expected to do well again.
Other Australasians in the field are Chris Campbell, Brad Kennedy, Paul Sheehan, Steve Conran, Richard Lee, Matthew Guyatt, David Smail and Neven Basic.
