{"id":365345,"date":"2025-12-24T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/365345\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T06:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:00:20","slug":"japanese-golf-star-jumbo-ozaki-dies-at-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/365345\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese golf star &#8216;Jumbo&#8217; Ozaki dies at 78"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"88\" data-end=\"264\">Masashi \u201cJumbo\u201d Ozaki, the Japanese golf icon and World Golf Hall of Fame inductee, has died aged 78 from colon cancer, his son announced on Wednesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a> reports, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afp.com\/en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"266\" data-end=\"417\">Ozaki claimed 94 victories on the Japan Tour, with his first title coming in 1973, and captured the Order of Merit a record 12 times during his career.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"419\" data-end=\"606\">Known by the nickname \u201cJumbo\u201d for his prodigious length off the tee, Ozaki was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011 after receiving support from 50% of international ballots.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"608\" data-end=\"899\">He passed away on Tuesday \u201cdue to stage 4 sigmoid colon cancer,\u201d his son Tomoharu said in a statement obtained by AFP. Tomoharu added that Ozaki had been undergoing treatment at home since being diagnosed about a year ago, and that his funeral would be attended only by close family members.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"901\" data-end=\"1088\">In an obituary published Wednesday, the Yomiuri daily said Ozaki \u201cexplosively elevated the popularity of <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/news\/thailand-s-suwannarut-holds-lead-heading-final-at-golf-macao-open\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">golf<\/a> (in Japan) with his overwhelming driving distance and colourful personality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1090\" data-end=\"1259\">Ozaki was part of a prominent golf family. His younger brothers, Naomichi (Joe) and Tateo (Jet), are both among the top 20 all-time money winners on the Japan Golf Tour.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1261\" data-end=\"1443\">Even late in his career, Ozaki continued to produce remarkable performances. In 2013, at the age of 66, he shot a nine-under-par 62 \u2014 matching his age \u2014 during a domestic tour event.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1445\" data-end=\"1705\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">\u201cShooting my age is not something I try to do,\u201d Ozaki said after taking the first-round lead at the Tsuruya Open. \u201cBut if you can\u2019t shoot 6-under or 7-under par when you play good golf, you don\u2019t belong on the tour,\u201d he told reporters, according to Kyodo News.<\/p>\n<p>Yutaka Morohoshi, chairman of the Japan Golf Tour Organisation, said the golf world had lost a &#8220;great&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He long steered the men&#8217;s professional golf world and overwhelmed others with his unparalleled strength,&#8221; he said in a statement on the organisation&#8217;s website.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Masashi \u201cJumbo\u201d Ozaki, the Japanese golf icon and World Golf Hall of Fame inductee, has died aged 78&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,2454,156653,82],"class_list":["post-365345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-japan","tag-jumbo-ozaki","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}