RIP, Jumbo Ozaki,

By. John K. Abendroth, PGA

RIP: Masahi “Jumbo” Ozaki, World golf Hall of Fame

On the passing of my friend Jumbo Ozaki it seemed appropriate to share my thoughts on this important golfer in the world of professional golf.

Jumbo played in The Masters 19 times and in 49 majors. Not only did he play in majors, but he had a knack to be in competition very often against some of the best. It has been said that Jumbo was the Arnold Palmer of golf in Japan. He wore fancy silk shirts had a swashbuckling swing and had movie star looks… and he could win.

My friendship came when I was asked to play golf with him in 1987 prior to the US Open at The Olympic Club to help him learn the course. We played a couple of rounds that included his much younger brother Joe. Jumbo picked me as his partner, “I’ll take the big guy…” With broken English, he says, we will play for $10. It turns out it was a point game, birdie, sandy, close to the hole, I was not real clear on what was happening but I played pretty good, at the end of the round they handed me $160, I guess we did pretty good.

My game was pretty decent at the time and a favorite club for me was a laminated Cobra Baffler 5 wood. Small head with brass sole and two runners. I hit a number of good shots that day, and Jumbo would say, “What is that club…” he did this 3-4 times. After the round, he went into the golf shop and bought 4 or 5 bafflers. I suspect, just maybe there was a Jumbo Baffler on the Japanese golf market soon after. Jumbo tied for 17^th in the US Open that year at Olympic.

Jumbo was an early adopter operating an academy to help train young aspiring golfers.

We would see each other a few other times after that and my mutual friend that set it up would tell me that Jumbo asked about me from time to time.

Fun to follow his career and to see what a substantial impact he made on the world of golf and was a big part of the rapid rise of interest for the game of golf in Japan. At his induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame he said one regret was to not play outside of Japan more often.

RIP my friend, you were quite the player and quite the character.