Our fourth and final biographical sketch of the new inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame”s class of 2011 is Masashi Ozaki of Japan. To the serious fan of the game of golf, Ozaki has always gone by the nickname of Jumbo, a tribute to his fullback-like size coupled with his prodigious length off the tee.
Born in January of 1947 in the Kaifu District of Tokeshima, Japan, Ozaki was a gifted athlete who excelled at sports from a young age. Initially, he was a top-notch baseball player who was good enough to be a pitcher and an outfielder in Japan”s version of the major leagues. He played for three years with the Nishitetsu Lions from age 18 through 21.
However, Jumbo had always been an avid golfer and he decided to walk away from his journeyman status as a baseball player and took the all-out plunge into professional golf. He turned pro in 1970 at age 23 and his choice paid off immediately. Playing exclusively in his homeland, he won five events in 1971, including the high-profile Japan PGA Championship. He had nine wins in 1972 in Japan and added the New Zealand PGA Championship, an event on the Australian Tour.
The Japan Tour was officially formulated in 1973 and Ozaki was the circuit”s first impact player as well as marquee star. I think it”s safe to say that in the formative years of the Japanese Tour, Jumbo Ozaki was his homeland”s version of Arnold Palmer. In many ways he was responsible for the growth of the game of golf in Japan.
Ozaki won tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour throughout four decades of competition and led the circuit in wins and earnings during a 30-year period of time. He won five times in 1973 and six times in 1974. He had six victories in 1988 and backed it up with seven wins in 1989. Jumbo found the winner”s circle seven times in 1994, had eight victories in 1996, and won five times in 1997 as a 50-year-old. His last official win on the Japanese Tour was at the ANA Open in 2002 when he was 55.
On 12 separate occasions, Jumbo Ozaki led the Japan Tour in earnings, the first time during its inaugural season of 1973, and the final time in 1998, some 25 years later. Along the way he was playing in 96 tournaments on the American PGA Tour, including 19 appearances in the Masters. His best American finish was a fourth in the 1993 Memorial. I remember watching him play in the 1987 United States Open at San Francisco”s Olympic Club, where he finished tied for 17th place. I recall how surprised I was to see him pound the ball out there off the tee at a distance comparable to the top long-ball knocker of that era, Greg Norman.
When all was said and done, Ozaki accumulated 94 wins on the Japan Golf Tour, had another 18 unofficial wins in Japan, with 14 of those coming in tournaments prior to the formation of the circuit. He played for the international team in the 1996 Presidents Cup Matches as a 49-year-old. He was Japan”s most famous golfer of the modern era and had colorful rivalries with top-notch golfers Isao Aoki, a Hall of Famer, and Tommy Nakajima. Jumbo is also a member of his country”s best known golfing family. His brothers Tateo and Naomichi, better known as Jet Ozaki and Joe Ozaki, also found victory lane on the Japanese Tour. While standings like the World Golf Rankings only came into being in the late 1980s, Jumbo was ranked in the world top 10 for several years in the ”80s and early 1990s.
In a May 2008 article in Golf Digest, Johnny Miller contended that Jumbo Ozaki might have been the best player never to have won a major championship. Miller, a U.S. Open and British Open champ as well as a golf television commentator, wrote that “having played with Jumbo in the 1970s and ”80s when he was at his best, I have no problem stating that Jumbo was as good as any player in the world. His game was extraordinary. He hit the ball incredibly high, long and straight, and he had a short game to go with it.”
Miller concluded his column with a look into his crystal ball. He wrote, “Jumbo, now 61 (in 2008) and still competing, hasn”t made it into the World Golf Hall of Fame yet, but he was terrific and deserves to be there based on his dominance in Japan.”
This May, the Arnold Palmer of Japanese golf, Jumbo Ozaki, will take his place in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Ozaki was the impetus behind the growth of the game in what has become a golf-crazed nation. Johnny Miller said it best. He very much deserves to be there.
Finally, to be journalistically accurate, there is a fifth member of this year”s class of 2011 in the HOF. Former American president George H.W. Bush will join Ozaki, Ernie Els, Doug Ford and Jock Hutchison in the hall this May. Bush is the second American president to be inducted, joining our country”s 34th president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bush is being inducted for his awareness and promotion of the game as well as his role in the growth of the Presidents Cup.
Bush and Eisenhower are not the only Hall of Famers who never won a professional tournament or never dominated the amateur golf scene. They are among a select foursome that includes Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, who were also ambassadors of the game regardless of their lack of top-notch victories.
