Japanese Golf Legend Masashi Ozaki Dies at 78

Tokyo, Dec. 24 (Jiji Press)–Masashi Ozaki, Japan’s most successful male professional golfer, better known by his nickname “Jumbo Ozaki,” or simply “Jumbo,” died of sigmoid colon cancer Tuesday at the age of 78. A native of the southwestern prefecture of Tokushima, Ozaki, renowned for his signature powerful swing and prodigious length, was a central figure of the sport’s boom from the 1970s through the 1980s. He won a record 94 Professional Golfers’ Association of Japan tournaments and topped the money list 12 times. As ace pitcher, Ozaki led Tokushima’s Kainan High School, now Kaifu High School, to a championship at the 1964 national high school baseball invitational tournament. He joined the Nishitetsu Lions professional baseball team, now the Saitama Seibu Lions, in 1965 but retired from the sport after three seasons with limited success, and switched to golf. After passing the PGA professional test in 1970, Ozaki won his first major victory at the Japan PGA Championship in 1971. In 1973, when the tour system began, Ozaki claimed five victories and his first money title. Though suffering a brief slump in the early 1980s, he became tour money leader 12 times in total by 1998. He and two other famed male golfers–Isao Aoki and Tsuneyuki Nakajima–created the sport’s golden age in Japan, dubbed the “AON” era, named after the first letters of their surnames. Ozaki continued competing in the regular tour past age 50, becoming the oldest player to win a tournament in 2002 at 55 years and seven months. “My golf is about inspiring people,” Ozaki has said. In 2013, when he was 66, Ozaki shot 62 to record the regular tour’s first-ever age shooting, or finishing a round with a score at or below the player’s age. Including nontour events, Ozaki amassed 113 career wins. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2010. He last competed in a tour in 2019 and later devoted himself to coaching young players, including Yuka Saso and Mao Saigo, both winners of major women’s tournaments in the United States. His younger brothers, Tateo and Naomichi, also built successful careers as professional golfers. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]