Isao Aoki
| Isao Aoki 青木 功 |
|
|---|---|
| — Golfer — | |
| Personal information | |
| Born |
31 August 1942 Abiko, Chiba |
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Weight | 180 lb (82 kg) |
| Nationality |
 Japan
|
| Career | |
| College | None |
| Turned professional | 1964 |
| Current tour(s) | Champions Tour |
| Former tour(s) |
Japan Golf Tour PGA Tour |
| Professional wins | 78 |
| Number of wins by tour | |
| PGA Tour | 1 |
| European Tour | 1 |
| Japan Golf Tour | 51 (2nd all-time) |
| PGA Tour Champions | 9 |
| Other | 16 |
| Best results in major championships |
|
| Masters Tournament | T16: 1985 |
| U.S. Open | 2nd: 1980 |
| The Open Championship | T7: 1978, 1979, 1988 |
| PGA Championship | T4: 1981 |
| Achievements and awards | |
| World Golf Hall of Fame | 2004 (member page) |
| Japan Golf Tour leading money winner |
1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 |
Isao Aoki (青木 功 Aoki Isao?, born 31 August 1942) is a Japanese professional golfer. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004.
Aoki was born in Abiko, Chiba, Japan. He was introduced to golf while caddying at the Abiko Golf Club as a schoolboy. He turned professional in 1964. He went on to win more than fifty events on the Japan Golf Tour between 1972 and 1990, trailing only Masashi "Jumbo" Ozaki on the list of golfers with most Japan Golf Tour wins. He won the Japan Golf Tour money list five times in six years: 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981. His career earnings are 980 million yen.
In 1983, Aoki won the Hawaiian Open on the U.S. based PGA Tour and the Panasonic European Open on the European Tour. He also won the prestigious World Match Play Championship in England in 1978, which was not a European Tour event at that time, and picked up a win on the PGA Tour of Australasia. Aoki is also one of nine players in the history of the Open Championship to shoot a round of just 63 shots (which he achieved in the third round of the 1980 event). Despite this being the joint-best round in the history of the tournament, Aoki would only finish in tied 12th spot that year.
Aoki played 165 times on the PGA Tour between 1974 and 1999, primarily from 1981 to 1990. His best finish in a major championship was a second-place finish to Jack Nicklaus (by two strokes) in the 1980 U.S. Open. That finish, combined with his recent record in Japan and around the globe, meant that Aoki would finish 1980 ranked third in the unofficial McCormack's World Golf Rankings, a position he would hold at the end of 1981. After the Official World Golf Rankings debuted in 1986, he was ranked in the top-10 for several weeks in 1987.
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Wikipedia