ISPS Championship, Katsuragawa in triumph

The ISPS Handa Championship goes to Yuto Katsuragawa who wins at home in Japan, for the second time in his career, the tournament already won in 2022. In Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, with a comeback in the final lap which saw him climb back from the 8th position thanks to a partial of 63 (-7) shots (equaled the course record), the Japanese won with a score of 263 (70 65 65 63, -17) shots. Nothing to do for the Swede Sebastian Soderberg, 2nd with 266 (-14) ahead of the Japanese Ryosuke Kinoshita, 3rd with 268 (-12) like the Spaniard Ivan Cantero, the German Marcel Schneider and the South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

ISPS Handa Championship, results

Not an exciting match for the Azzurri. Filippo Celli (67 68 69 71) and Francesco Laporta (67 68 71 69) shared 42nd position with 275 (-5), while Lorenzo Scalise did not go beyond 60th place with 279 (-1). However, the South African Casey Jarvis collapsed in the last and decisive 18 holes, 18th with 271 (-9) after finishing the “moving day” in the lead. Also a setback for the German Yannik Paul, from 2/o to 36/o with 274 (-6). Double party, in front of his own audience, for Katsuragawa. On the Taiheiyo Club Gotemba course (par 70), the 25-year-old from Kiyosu, a professional since 2020, made twelve birdies in the last 36 holes played (including seven in the fourth round), without any bogeys. For him it is the first success on the DP World Tour given that in 2022, due to the travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 epidemiological emergency, the event was only included in the Japan Golf Tour calendar.

The exploit earned him 382,500 dollars for a total prize money of 2,250,000 dollars and allowed him to enter the Top 25 of the Race to Dubai, the order of merit of the highest European men’s circuit. “I trained a lot to get to this result. Now I can play DP World Tour tournaments and this makes me really happy. My goal for the future is to become a member of the PGA Tour”, Katsuragawa said. After the one in the Hero Indian Open signed by Keita Nakajima (this time 11th with 270, -10), it is the second consecutive victory on the circuit for the Japanese, the third of the season (in February Rikuya Hoshino in fact won the Qatar Masters). (HANDLE).