Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course, the DP World Tour's newest venue, has a 46-year history on the Japan Golf Tour Organisation and boasts a storied list of former champions.
With views of Mount Fuji offering a spectacular backdrop to this year's tournament, Taiheiyo Club provides an impressive setting for the second iteration of the ISPS HANDA – CHAMPIONSHIP on the DP World Tour.
And while it may be a new venue on the DP World Tour, it’s a location that has an incredibly long-standing history with Japanese golf and the Japan Golf Tour.
No stranger to hosting elite competitions, The Gotembo Course has staged the Taiheiyo Masters on the Japan Golf Tour every year since its opening in 1977. It has also hosted the 2001 World Cup of Golf - won by Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and will stage this year's Asia Pacific Amateur Championship in October.
The par 70 layout, which plays at 7262 yards and is described by the club as a 'true hillside course', was designed in 1977 by Shunsuke Kato and is the flagship layout of Taineiyo Club's 18 courses. It remained relatively unchanged until it underwent a renovation in 2018, which was overseen by Rees Jones with consultation from Matsuyama.
With fast greens and several dog-legs, the advantage of course knowledge sits firmly with a plethora of Japanese players in this week's field that bring years of course experience to this week's event.
Here, we delve a little further into that history.
The Taiheiyo Masters is an event, and Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course subsequently a venue, that boasts an incredible list of former champions spanning its 46 year history.
Prior to the tournament's move to Gotemba, there were five previous editions, held at Sobu Country Club in China. In those five years, the tone was set for the calibre of champions this event would produce, and is something that has continued throughout its history.
1967 Masters Champion Gay Brewer won the first edition in 1972, and the importance of that victory would see a new form of a three-hole aggregate play-off contested, the first ever of its kind in a golf tournament.
The next year the event was won by Masashi Ozaki (Japan's most successful golfer of all time and three-time winner of this event) in 1973, followed by 1961 U.S. Open champion Gene Littler in both 1974 and 1975. Jerry Pate then claimed the final edition in China, in the same year that he would claim the 1976 U.S. Open in his rookie season.
In 1977 the tournament would move to Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course, and that vein of champion immediately continued with Bill Rogers, who won the Taiheiyo Masters four years before he claimed the 1981 Open Championship at Royal St George's.
From that year on, its status and importance in the climate of Japanese golf was cemented, and it has since become a staple on the calendar for golfers from both Japan and further afield.
The next Major champion to claim the title was none other than the late, great Seve Ballesteros, who preceded back-to-back victories captured by José María Olazábal.
Ozaki, who counted two more wins in this event on a resume that counts 94 wins on the Japan Golf Tour, soon triumphed again in 1992 and followed Greg Norman with another win in 1994.
He is just one of several players to have won the tournament on multiple occasions, which also includes Littler, Norio Suzuki, Olazábal, Tommy Nakajima, Lee Westwood, Toshimitsui Izawa, Darren Clarke, Shingo Katayma, Ryo Ishikawa, Hideto Tanihara and Hideki Matsuyama - who first claimed the title as an amateur in 2011.
Since Darren Clarke's second victory in 2005, the tournament has become one dominated by Japanese talent, boasting 16 wins in the last 18 editions. Of those winners, several feature in the field this week.
Ryo Ishikawa claimed his first of three wins in 2010, adding another in 2012 and a third a decade later with a play-off victory over Rikuya Hoshino.
Takumi Kanaya, who currently leads the JGTO Order of Merit, followed Matsuyama as just the second amateur in history to win the event in 2019 and set the course-record that week of 63 (-7), which was tied by Keita Nakajima.
He also finished as the runner-up to Hideto Tanihara two years later, who himself claimed the title in both 2013 and again after development in 2021.
Other Japanese winners joining Ishikawa, Kanaya and Tanihara in the field this week include defending Taiheiyo Masters champion Shugo Imahira, Satoshi Kodaira and recent DP World Tour winner Keita Najakima, who secured his status on the DP World Tour via the pathway from the JGTO Order of Merit.
Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course is unquestionably a venue that already brings with it an unrivalled history in Japan golfing culture, but while those players will be hoping course experience counts, there is also a unique chance to add to a new legacy at this course this week - on the DP World Tour.
Fact file on Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course
Course Record: 63 (-7) by Takumi Kanaya (2019), Keita Nakajima (2019), Ryosuke Kinoshita (2020), Riki Kawamoto (2022), Taiki Hoshida (2023)
Scoring Record: -23 (265), Hideki Matsuyama (2016)
Biggest Margin of Victory: 7 Strokes, Hideki Matsuyama (2016)
