The is a professional

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

tournament played in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Founded in 1971, it has been a

Japan Golf Tour The Japan Golf Tour () is a prominent professional golf tour. It was founded in 1973 and as of 2006, it offered the third-highest annual prize fund out of the regular (that is not for seniors) men's professional tours after the PGA Tour and the ...

event since 1979. Since 1998, the event has been prefixed , with the top finishers gaining exemptions into

The Open Championship The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...

. The Mizuno Open has been held at several courses, most frequently at JFE Setonaikai Golf Club in

Kasaoka is a Cities of Japan, city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 45,404 in 21,987 households and a population density of . The total area of the city is . The municipal district also includes 31 outly ...

Okayama is the prefectural capital, capital Cities of Japan, city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The Okayama metropolitan area, centered around the city, has the largest urban employment zone in the Chugoku region of western J ...

, which has hosted all but six renewals since 1998. The purse for the 2024 event was ¥100,000,000, with ¥20,000,000 going to the winner.

History

The Mizuno Open was founded in 1971 as the Mizuno Tournament with both men's and women's events running side-by-side. It was restricted to golfers using at least ten

Mizuno () is a Japanese sports equipment and sportswear company, founded in Osaka in 1906 by Rihachi Mizuno. Today, Mizuno is a global corporation which makes a wide variety of sports equipment and sportswear for table tennis, boxing, badminton, gol ...

clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Club (magazine), ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands a ...

. In 1979, fifty leading professionals in Japan were also eligible to compete as the tournament counted towards the Japan Golf Tour money-list ranking for the first time. In 1983 it became a full tour event and in 1985 changed its name to the Mizuno Open. From 1991, the women's event was played separately. Since 1998, the event has been prefixed "Gateway to The Open", with the top four finishers in the tournament that were not already qualified gaining exemptions into

. There has also been a mini-money list of Japan Golf Tour events up to and including the Mizuno Open that earns two exemptions into The Open. From 2007 to 2010 The Mizuno Open merged with the

Yomiuri Open The Yomiuri Open was a professional golf tournament on the Japan Golf Tour. Founded in 1970 as the Wizard Tournament, a 36-hole invitational tournament, it was played at Hashimoto Country Club in Wakayama until 1979 when it moved to Yomiuri Cou ...

to form the Gateway to The Open Mizuno Open Yomiuri Classic.

Tournament hosts

Winners

Source:

Notes

References

External links

*
Coverage on the Japan Golf Tour's official site
{{Japan Golf Tour Events Japan Golf Tour events Golf tournaments in Japan Recurring sporting events established in 1971 1971 establishments in Japan