Japanese golf icon Masashi ‘Jumbo’ Ozaki has passed away at age 78. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011.
Masashi ‘Jumbo’ Ozaki died on Tuesday at the age of 78 from colon cancer. Ozaki won a record 94 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO), including five Japan Open titles and six Japan PGA Championships. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011. His only victory outside Japan came at the 1972 New Zealand PGA Championship.
JGTO’s Most Successful Golfer
No golfer in Japanese history has been as dominant as Ozaki. His 94 JGTO wins are 43 more than second-place Isao Aoki, and he claimed the tour’s Order of Merit a record 12 times. Thanks to his domestic success, Ozaki spent 200 weeks in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking and played a key role in popularizing golf in Japan. While international wins were rare, he still posted top-10 finishes at the 1973 Masters, 1989 U.S. Open, and 1979 Open Championship.
A Unique Life On and Off the Course
Nicknamed ‘Jumbo’ for his 1.81m, 90kg frame and powerful drives, Ozaki thrilled Japanese fans with his all-or-nothing playing style and became a national celebrity. His path to golf was unconventional—he was first a promising baseball player, winning a national high school championship and playing professionally for three years. He switched to golf at age 23 and won his first JGTO event in 1973 at age 26. His final tour victory came 29 years later, at age 55.
Ozaki also ventured into music, launching a brief pop career in the late 1980s with three singles that charted in Japan, further cementing his status as a cultural icon.