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ISAO
(EYE-say-oh)
One
of Japan's most successful golfers
Common
clues: Golfer
Aoki; Aoki of golf; Japanese golfer Aoki; Aoki of the links;
Four-time Japan Senior Open winner Aoki; World Golf Hall of Famer
Aoki
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
2 times a year
Video:
Top 10
clutch hole outs for victory on the PGA Tour
[Isao
Aoki] is one of the three best players in the world from 100
yards. Maybe the best. Tom Watson
Isao
Aoki (born 31 August 1942) is one of Japan's most successful
golfers. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004.
Aoki
was born in Abiko, Chiba, Japan. He was introduced to golf while
caddying at the Abiko Golf Club as a schoolboy. He turned
professional in 1964. He went on to win more than fifty events on
the Japan Golf Tour between 1972 and 1990, trailing only Masashi
"Jumbo" Ozaki on the golfers with most Japan Golf Tour
wins list. He won the Japan Golf Tour money list five times in
six years: 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981. He is eighth on the
career money list (through 2009).
In
1983, Aoki won the Hawaiian Open on the U.S. based PGA Tour and
the Panasonic European Open on the European Tour. He also won the
prestigious World Match Play Championship in England in 1978,
which was not a European Tour event at that time, and picked up a
win on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Aoki
played 165 times on the PGA Tour between 1974 and 1999, primarily
from 1981 to 1990. His best finish in a major championship was a
second place finish to Jack Nicklaus (by two strokes) in the 1980
U.S. Open. That finish, combined with his recent record in Japan
and around the globe, meant that Aoki would finish 1980 ranked
third in the unofficial McCormack's World Golf Rankings, a
position he would hold at the end of 1981. After the Official
World Golf Rankings debuted in 1986, he was ranked in the top-10
for several weeks in 1987.[1]
As
a senior, Aoki has played mainly in the United States on the
Champions Tour, winning nine times between 1992 and 2003. He has
eight senior victories outside the United States, including five
victories in the Japan Senior Open where he shot his age, 65,
during his most recent triumph in 2007.[
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Isao_Aoki".
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