World Golf Hall of Famer Masashi \u2018Jumbo\u2019 Ozaki, a 94-time winner on the Japan Tour, has died from colon cancer at the age of 78<\/p>\n
JAPANESE golf legend Masashi \u201cJumbo\u201d Ozaki has died at the age of 78.<\/p>\n
His son, Tomoharu Ozaki, announced that the World Golf Hall of Famer died on Tuesday due to stage 4 sigmoid colon cancer.<\/p>\n
The golfer had been undergoing treatment at home for about a year after his diagnosis.<\/p>\n
Ozaki won 94 times on the Japan Golf Tour, securing his first title in 1973.<\/p>\n
He won the Japan Tour Order of Merit a record 12 times throughout his illustrious career.<\/p>\n
Nicknamed \u201cJumbo\u201d for his exceptional driving distance, he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011.<\/p>\n
The Yomiuri daily stated he \u201cexplosively elevated the popularity of golf (in Japan) with his overwhelming driving distance and colourful personality\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was part of a famous golfing family, with younger brothers Naomichi and Tateo also among the tour\u2019s all-time top money winners.<\/p>\n
At age 66 in 2013, he shot a nine-under-par 62 to match his age in a domestic tour event.<\/p>\n
\u201cShooting my age is not something I try to do,\u201d Ozaki said after that round at the Tsuruya Open.<\/p>\n
Yutaka Morohoshi, chairman of the Japan Golf Tour Organisation, said the golf world had lost a \u201cgreat\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe long steered the men\u2019s professional golf world and overwhelmed others with his unparalleled strength,\u201d his statement read.<\/p>\n
The funeral will be a private ceremony attended by close family members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Golf Hall of Famer Masashi \u2018Jumbo\u2019 Ozaki, a 94-time winner on the Japan Tour, has died from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,146406,199774,199775,199776,85,199777],"class_list":["post-368682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-japan-golf-tour","tag-japanese-golfer-dies","tag-jumbo-ozaki","tag-masashi-ozaki","tag-sports","tag-world-golf-hall-of-fame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}