Tom McKibbin closed out the week in Japan in style, his final-round 65 good for a T7 finish at the ISPS HANDA – CHAMPIONSHIP and his third top-10 finish in just eight 2024 starts.
For the third day running, the Holywood man made hay over the opening stretch at Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba, reeling off five straight birdies to go rocketing up the leaderboard, and another on the ninth saw him make the turn at six-under on the day and -12 overall.
He couldn’t maintain the pace, however, and a pair of dropped shots at 11 and 13 halted the charge. He’d pick up another birdie on 14, and signed off for the week with four pars, recording his second round in the mid-60s and ending the week tied for seventh, six shots behind the winner.
That was home favourite Yuto Katsuragawa who continued a history-making season for players from Japan on the DP World Tour with a three-shot victory on home soil.
The local favourite entered the final day three shots off the lead but was right in the mix at the turn as many of the leading players stumbled.
Sebastian Söderberg was the only one keeping pace with him but the 25-year-old started the back nine with five birdies in seven holes to leave the Swede in his wake and finish at 17 under after a course-record equalling 63.
Söderberg carded a 67 to be the nearest challenger but all the headlines belonged to Katsuragawa, who made it back-to-back Japanese wins in regular DP World Tour events for the first time after Keita Nakajima’s victory at the Hero Indian Open.
Isao Aoki was the first Japanese winner in DP World Tour history at the 1983 European Open but we had to wait 33 years for another when Hideki Matsuyama lifted the trophy at the 2016 WGC-HSBC Champions. Matsuyama would lift another World Golf Championships title the following year before his monumental Masters Tournament victory in 2021 made it four all-time Japanese wins on the DP World Tour.
That tally has now doubled in just seven months, with Ryo Hisatsune’s win at last season’s Cazoo Open de France being followed by Rikuya Hoshino’s 2024 victory at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters and Nakajima and Katsuragawa’s recent heroics.
Katsuragawa’s maiden DP World Tour win comes in just his fifth start and is his second in this event, having lifted the trophy in 2022 before it was co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and the Japan Golf Tour Organization.
Japan’s Ryosuke Kinoshita, Ivan Cantero of Spain, German Marcel Schneider and South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout were then in a tie for third place at 12 under par.
Next week’s Volvo China Open is the last counting event in the DP World Tour’s Asian Swing, with players in positions one to three in the final Asian Swing Ranking receiving exemptions into the US PGA Championship next month.
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