Isao Aoki

Isao Aoki, born on August 31, 1942 in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, is a Japanese professional golfer who also designs and supervises the building of golf courses. His 51 wins on the Japan Golf Tour are second only to one man on its all-time list, and he was leading money winner five times. In 1978 he won the World Match Play Championship in England, and from then on he was known at home as Sekai no Aoki, Aoki of the world. At the U.S. Open of 1980 he finished second, two strokes behind Jack Nicklaus. In 1983 he won the Hawaiian Open, the first Japanese player to win on the PGA Tour, and in the same year he took the European Open on the European Tour; he later won nine times on the American senior tour, now PGA Tour Champions. In 2004 he became the first Japanese man to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, and in 2024 he was named a Person of Cultural Merit. From 2016 to 2024 he served as chairman of the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO).

The best known of his designs is The North Country Golf Club in Chitose, Hokkaido. It opened in 1990, and the club’s own website describes it as a course designed and supervised by the professional Isao Aoki, and as the first course in Japan laid entirely with bent grass. From 2005 to 2024 it was the home of the Shigeo Nagashima Invitational Sega Sammy Cup. At Toride Kokusai Golf Club in Ibaraki Prefecture he supervised a thorough remodelling of the East Course, which reopened in November 2015.

He has work in Southeast Asia as well. One of the four courses at Eagle Ridge Golf & Country Club in Cavite province, the Philippines, is the Isao Aoki Course. The club’s own website describes it as a course with wide fairways and little rough, designed with the weekend golfer in mind. The same club also has courses designed by Nick Faldo and Greg Norman.

See the other golf course architects here.