Tournament article

Mynavi ABC Championship Golf Tournament 2019

Hiroshi Iwata aka "poker face" smiles as he makes co-leader start at Mynavi ABC Championship

Hiroshi Iwata has been making the appearance in Mynavi ABC Championship for 11 times since 2006, but his best finish so far is at 15T in 2014.
"I am playing as usual but here I can't make the score."

This course has been giving Hiroshi troubles, but today he finished with bogey free round with 7 birdies to score 65.

Internet live broadcasting has started for this tournament from this year and, it shows not only the performances on the course, but also many fun programs outside of the ropes. One of them is making player pick a questionnaire card and answer to whatever that is written on that card. Hiroshi's question was finishing the sentence starting from "to tell you the truth".

Hiroshi's answer was, "To tell you the truth, I hate bugs. I can touch rhinoceros beetle and praying mantis. Other than those, I could never touch them."
Fans laughed and welcomed to see Hiroshi who always seemed to have a poker face on to be very frank and friendly.

At the interview he also thanked Hidemichi Tanaka, who is the winner of Mynavi ABC Championship in 1995 and became the JGTO Course Setting Advisor, with the pin positions that Hidemichi selected.
"Thanks to all of the pin positions that Hidemichi chose, I was able to score great."

As Hiroshi said, he was able to make 7 birdies today. His birdie on 6th was 10-meter putt, and on 7th it was 8-meter downhill right to left line. One outstanding putt was at Par 3 16th, where he holed the 20-meter long putt.
"Today, my putter did the great job."

Hiroshi now in his 16th year as a Pro, is already 38 years old. Any of his fellow players do acknowledge Hiroshi's potentials but he only has 2 victories under his name. Hidemichi Tanaka also commented that, "To me Hiroshi should have already won 8 or 9 wins. I wish him to grab a victory this week."

Hiroshi stayed at his hometown Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture and watched the ZOZO Championship on TV. Hiroshi has challenged playing US PGA Tour in 2015-16 season, and on 2015 PGA Championship, he has done the Lowest Major Score Record at that time with marking 63 on Round 2. But he couldn't manage to keep the tour card and decided to come back to Japan Tour.

Tiger's record of 82 victories must have given Hiroshi a lot of motivation, craving to challenge the US Tour again. But for now, he will hide his devotion deep inside of him and concentrate on winning on the Japan Tour first.