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 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 on the

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 ...

. 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$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

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 111,266 in 45,717 households and a population density of 900 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Inzai is loca ...

, 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 Shizuoka can refer to: * Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture * Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture * Shizuoka Airport * Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain was a feudal domain under the Tok ...

. Its title sponsors are

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation is a Japanese multinational banking financial services institution owned by the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, which is also known as the SMBC Group. It is headquartered in the same building as SMBC Group in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. ...

and

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: * Travel visa, a document that allows entry to a foreign country * Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Vi ...

. 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. Career Brewer turned professional in 1956 and made his first cut, at the Agua Calie ...

and Australia's David Graham. 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