Shin Ji-yai looks to make it four at Toto Japan Classic

The decades-old Toto Japan Classic begins on Thursday in Omitama, Japan where 78 players are set to tee off in the four-day, no-cut tournament with a $2,000,000 purse.

Korea's Shin Ji-yai plays during the final round of the U.S. Women's Open gat the Pebble Beach Golf Links in July in Pebble Beach, Calif. [AP/YONHAP]

The decades-old Toto Japan Classic begins on Thursday in Omitama, Japan where 78 players are set to tee off in the four-day, no-cut tournament with a $2,000,000 purse.

It’s the 46th run of the Classic, which is co-sanctioned by the LPGA and JLPGA and dates back to 1973 when it ran as an unofficial LPGA money event through 1975.

Nine Koreans are set to hit the Toto green this year, including three-time champion Shin Ji-yai, who won the LPGA title in 2008 and 2010. She won again in 2020, when the tournament ran as a JLPGA-only event during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shin, 35, now plays primarily on the JLPGA Tour and has so far competed in 19 tournaments on the Japanese professional circuit this season compared to just four on the LPGA Tour. She won the JLPGA season opener 10-under-par, 278 after an exceptional third round, where she finished 7-under-par, 65, with six birdies and an eagle.

For Shin, this year’s course is a familiar one. The Classic is headed back to Taiheiyo Club’s Minori Course, where Shin claimed the title in 2020. Retired Chinese golfer Shanshan Feng, a 10-time LPGA Tour winner, won the tournament the two other times it was held at the Minori Course — in 2016 and 2017.

It's set to be a warm and sunny weekend in Omitama, which sits north of Tokyo off Japan's east coast.

Among the other Korean golfers headed to Japan are Lee Mi-hyang, who won the Classic in 2014 in a three-way playoff, besting Japan’s Kotono Kozuma and Korea’s Lee Il-hee.

Also in the field is Korea’s Kim Hyo-joo, who notched a wire-to-wire Tour win at the Ascendant in Texas last month to claim her first title of the season and is currently ranked 4th in the Rolex Rankings.

There are 38 total players from Japan set to compete in this year’s Classic, the only LPGA Tour stop in Japan this season and the final leg of its fall Asian swing. Last year's Toto champion Gemma Drybaugh is also back.

Gemma Dryburgh, right, of Scotland celebrates with her caddie after winning the LPGA Tour's Toto Japan Classic at the Seta Golf Club in Shiga, Japan in Nov. 2022. [AP/YONHAP]

The Tour previously stopped in Korea for the BMW Ladies Championship in Paju, Gyeonggi, where Australian golfer Minjee Lee, whose parents were born in Korea, won in a playoff against Korean American Andrea Lee. The Tour comes to Japan from Malaysia where France’s Celine Boutier claimed her fourth LPGA title of the season

After the Toto wraps up on Sunday, the circuit heads back to the United States to close out the season with The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican — the last tournament before the CME Group Tour Championship, both held in Florida.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]