Significant Japanese presence at OneAsia’s High1 Resort Open

Hideto Tanihara

Gangwon-do, South Korea; July 5: Nine-time Japan Tour winner Hideto Tanihara is one of nine players from the Japan Golf Tour Organization featuring at this week’s US$1 million The Charity High1 Resort Open presented by SBS, which starts on Thursday.

The move represents a significant shift with more leading Japanese players set to feature on OneAsia in the future.

Tanihara will be joined at High1 Country Club for the sixth stop for OneAsia this season’s by compatriots Mitsuhiro Tateyama, Kunihiro Kamii, Masaya Tomida, Kiyoshi Miyazato, Makoto Inoue, Yoshikazu Haku, Takuya Taniguchi and Akio Sadakata as Japan bids to become the sixth nation to taste success on OneAsia.

Tateyama has posted two top-ten finishes on the Japan Tour this season, while Kamii has shown equally consistent after missing the cut just once this year.

Both maintained that form at last week’s Mizuno Open, and although Tomida finished further down the leaderboard, it was the first time this season the 34-year-old had placed outside the top-30 after making the cut. The older brother of LPGA star and former world number one Ai Miyazato, Miyazato boasts two top-35 finishes this season.

The U$1 million event, which will take place at the comprehensive Kangwonland resort in the mountainous North-Eastern province of Gangwon, will see Indonesia PGA Championship winner Andre Stolz looking to edge ahead of Kim Kyung-tae at the top of the OneAsia Order of Merit with another solid display.

After winning the opening event of the 2011 season, Stolz bounced back from missing the cut at the GS Caltex Maekyung Open with back-to-back top-10 finishes in his last two events in Korea and China to push his earnings this year to over US$250,000.

The 41-year-old missed out on the four-way play-off at the Nanshan China Masters by a single stoke and had to settle for a tie for fifth alongside Zhang Xinjun after claiming ninth at the SK Telecom Open.

Australia’s Scott Laycock, who made his way into the play-off in China alongside Michael Long and Craig Hancock before losing to Korean rookie Kim Bi-o, will be looking to go one step further next week after being the second player eliminated from the exciting finale in China.

Big-hitting Kim Dae-hyun heads a strong Korean challenge after a fifth place finish at the Dongbu Promi Open at the end of last month marked a seventh top-20 finish of the season, which includes his last three outings on OneAsia.

Dongbu Promi Open winner Kang Kyung-nam along with Bae Sang-moon, who finished third at the Mizuno Open for a fifth top-10 of the season, are also heading to High1 Country Club with Koreans having won two of the last three OneAsia events.

Korean rookie Han Chang-won has been a model of consistency all season after winning OneAsia Qualifying School and the 2009 Asian Amateur Championship will also look to continue his impressive form after finishing inside the top-40 in all five starts this season to sit seventh on the Order of Merit. – www.oneasia.asia