Key changes that ushered in the golden era of Japanese women's golf
Beth Ann Nichols- JLPGA chairman Hiromi Kobayashi's vision to elevate Japanese players on the global stage has come to fruition.
- Changes to the JLPGA, such as more four-round tournaments and LPGA-style course setups, helped prepare players for international competition.
- Following Hinako Shibuno's 2019 major win, Japanese golfers have won four of the last nine majors.
- Miyu Yamashita has a chance to win both LPGA Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season.
Not long after Hiromi Kobayashi became chairman of the JLPGA, she told her staff that a Japanese player would win a major on an international level.
The JLPGA hosts its own majors, of course, but Kobayashi wanted to see success for Japanese players on a global stage.
“We were like, really?” said Noriko Aso, a former JLPGA player and current rules official. “We were skeptical.”
Kobayashi, 62, won 11 times on the JLPGA and four times on the LPGA, as well as the 1997 Evian Masters, then an LET event. (Her 1998 win at the Japan Classic was co-sanctioned by both the JLPGA and LPGA, giving her 15 professional titles.) She became chairman of the JLPGA in 2011.
Knowing that big things were different between the two tours, Kobayashi set out to make the JLPGA more similar to the LPGA. To start, the tour went from having only a handful of four-round tournaments to more than 20.
“We have course setters who are former professional players who had a really good career,” Aso said. LPGA majors often have reachable par 4s in their setups. Japan started doing the same.
Aso was in South Korea officiating at the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown, where Team Japan was among the favorites. She noted that when the LPGA and R&A bring JLGPA rules officials over to work big events, they take notes there, too.
“We just try to adjust to the level that you guys have, so the players can get used to it,” said Aso.
Hisako “Chako” Higuchi won the 1977 LPGA Championship (now KPMG Women’s PGA) to become the first Japanese player to win an LPGA major. There wasn’t another until Hinako Shibuno stunned the world by winning the 2019 AIG Women’s British Open. The effervescent Shibuno, who was playing outside of Japan for the first time, became an overnight sensation.
Several weeks ago on the JLPGA, Aso noted, Shibuno teed off on the 10th hole Sunday and enjoyed the largest gallery of the day. Not even the leaders could compete for the attention.
“That was historical,” said Aso of Shibuno's AIG win. “It’s like Se Ri Pak of Korea. If Shibuno can win, we can all win. People start to challenge.”
Six years later, Japanese players have won four of the last nine majors. Three Japanese players finished in the top five of the AIG Women’s British Open, played on a links course in Porthcawl, Wales.
“We don’t have that kind of course,” notes Aso.
Before Shibuno, there was the immensely popular Ai Miyazato, a phenom who rose to No. 1 in the world in 2010.
Miyazato’s longtime caddie once recalled a time that he and Miyazato pulled into a train station somewhere in Japan and people standing on the platform spotted the golfing icon and started banging on the windows.
"Ai Mania" was a real thing in Japan, particularly at the height of her career, when it seemed like she was in every other television commercial and rivaled Major League Baseball players as the country’s biggest sports star.
“If she gets recognized, chaos ensues,” said Seaborn.
Journalist Reiko Takekawa had covered Japanese golf for decades and believes that Miyazato’s popularity helped private courses in Japan become a more welcoming place for junior players.
Five Japanese players have won a total of six titles on the LPGA thus far in 2025, including a pair of victorious twin sisters, Akie and Chisato Iwai. Born one minute apart, Chisato was the first to win on the JLPGA in August 2022. Akie followed eight months later.
Together, they might be having the most fun of anyone on the LPGA this season, exploring the world.
At this week’s Toto Japan Classic, Nasa Hataoka and Miyau Yamashita lead the field at 7 under, while eight additional Japanese players are in at least a share of seventh. JLPGA players have won the last two editions of the Toto, earning LPGA cards in the process.
The petite Yamashita, winner of this year’s AIG Women’s British Open and last week’s Maybank Championship in Malaysia, has a chance to become only the third player to ever win LPGA Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season, joining Sung Hyun Park (2017) and Nancy Lopez (1978). Ayako Okamoto (1987) is the only other Japanese player to win LPGA Player of the Year honors.
Last year, Mao Saigo joined Kobayashi (1990) as the only Japanese players to win the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year.
Ayaka Furue, meanwhile, won the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average, becoming the first Japanese player to achieve the feat in the award’s 72-year history.
Japanese players occupy the first four positions of this year’s rookie race, with Yamashita leading by 206 points over Rio Takeda. Yamashita trails world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul by 25 points in the POY standings.
Long known as one of the world’s premier tours, Kobayashi has worked to broaden the JLPGA's appeal by broadcasting JLPGA events in more Asian markets and, earlier this spring, co-sanctioned an event with China’s CLPG Tour.
JLPGA players have become mainstays on the leaderboards at LPGA majors and qualifying school.
Aso remembers watching Annika Sorenstam while playing against her in the Mizuno Classic, which at the time was a co-sanctioned LPGA event in Japan. She held her arms far apart to show the talent gap that existed between the two tours back then.
“I knew as a player it was pretty unreal to imagine that we could actually win a major tournament in another country,” said Aso. “Hiromi said we’re going to do it. Now that we all believe, it’s easier to accomplish it."