The DP World Tour moves on to Japan for the fourth tournament in Asia this season with the ISPS Handa Championship.
The highest-ranked player in the field is World No.59 Lucas Herbert. He is ranked 13 places higher than the second on the list in this week’s field, South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout.
Both players competed in last week’s designated event on the PGA Tour, the RBC Heritage, with Bezuidenhout’s tie for 19th particularly impressing. Given the considerably weaker field here, they will each be confident of performing well.
Ernie Els is one of the standout names in the field as he looks for his third win in Japan following his 1993 Dunlop Phoenix Tournament victory at Phoenix Country Club and 2001 triumph in the World Cup of Golf at Taiheiyo Golf Club.
The four-time Major-winning veteran won the Hoag Classic on the PGA Tour Champions last month and also appeared in last week’s RBC Heritage at Harbour Town, where he finished tied for 56th in a strong field.
Elsewhere, Spaniard Rafa Cabrera Bello, who has four DP World Tour victories to his name, also plays, as he looks to add to that collection at PGM Ishioka Golf Club this week. Meanwhile, Dane Rasmus Hojgaard goes in search of his fourth win on the Tour while his twin brother Nicolai tees it up at TPC Louisiana on the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
While both Cabrero Bello and Hojgaard last won in 2021, there are more recent DP World Tour champions in the field. One of those is Scot Robert MacIntyre, won in last September’s Italian Open at the venue for this year’s Ryder Cup, Marco Simone Golf and Country Club. One of Team Europe’s vice captains in that tournament will be Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, and he also appears this week.
Last September, Italian Guido Migliozzi won the Open de France at Le Golf National, and he plays too, while another relatively recent winner on the DP World Tour is Antoine Rozner, who claimed victory in December’s AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
More recently, Marcel Siem claimed his first title on the Tour in over eight years with February’s Hero Indian Open, while Jorge Campillo won by two shots in the Magical Kenya Open in March, and they appear too.
Many local hopes will rest on the shoulders of World No.87 Kazuki Higa. Even though he missed the cut in his most recent start, the Masters at Augusta National, it’s not too long since he showed what he was capable of with a tie for fourth at the tournament won by Siem in February. Elsewhere,…
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