The Taiheiyo Masters, titled since 2001 as the for sponsorship reasons, is a professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament on the

Japan Golf Tour The Japan Golf Tour ( ja, 日本ゴルフツアー機構) is a prominent golf tour. It was founded in 1973 and as of 2006 it offers the third-highest annual prize fund out of the regular (that is not for seniors) men's professional tours after t ...

. Founded in 1972, it was promoted as the Pacific Masters and for a few years was the richest golf tournament in the world with a prize fund of US$300,000. It remains one of the richest tournaments in Japan, attracting some of the leading international golfers. The tournament was played at Sobu Country Club near

Inzai 260px, Inzai City Hall is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 105,463 in 42,388 households and a population density of 850 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Inzai is loc ...

, Chiba until 1976. Since 1977 it has been contested on Taiheiyo Club's Gotemba Course near

Gotemba is a city on the southeastern flank of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 88,370 in 36,096 households, and a population density of 450 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography ...

, Shizuoka. Its title sponsors are

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation is a Japanese multinational banking and financial services institution headquartered in Yurakucho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The group operates in retail, corporate, and investment banking segment worldwide. It provides financial products and se ...

and Visa. Previous names include Taiheiyo Club Masters, Toshiba Taiheiyo Masters, Visa Taiheiyo Club Masters, and Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters. The inaugural tournament went into a playoff between America's

Gay Brewer Gay Robert Brewer Jr. (March 19, 1932 – August 31, 2007) was an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and won the 1967 Masters Tournament. Life Brewer was born in Middletown, Ohio, and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. As an amat ...

and Australia's

David Graham David Graham may refer to: Authors and intellectuals * David Graham (American poet), American writer and poet *David Graham (author) (1919–1994), pen name of British writer Robert Hale * David Graham (Canadian academic), Canadian academic admini ...

. It was a three-hole aggregate playoff, the first ever instituted in a golf tournament. Before that, playoffs were either decided in a full round or sudden death. Brewer won the event.

Tournament hosts

Winners

''Note: Green highlight indicates scoring records''
Sources:歴代優勝者 - 2015三井住友VISA太平洋マスターズ
/ref>Past Champions
/ref>

Notes

References

External links

Coverage on the Japan Golf Tour's official siteOfficial site
{{Japan Golf Tour Events Japan Golf Tour events Golf tournaments in Japan Sport in Shizuoka Prefecture Gotemba, Shizuoka Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Recurring sporting events established in 1972 1972 establishments in Japan