The Japan Golf Tour is a prominent golf tour. It was founded in 1973 and as of 2006 it offers the third highest annual prize fund out of the regular (that is not for seniors) men's professional tours after the PGA Tour and the European Tour. However since the early 1990s, the growth in prize money has not kept pace with that on the two larger tours. Official events on the Japan Golf Tour count for World Golf Ranking points, and success on the tour can also qualify members to play in the majors.

Most of the leading players on the tour are Japanese, but players from many other countries also participate. The tour is currently run by the Japan Golf Tour Organisation (JGTO), which was established in 1999. The JGTO also organises a developmental tour called the Japan Challenge Tour.

Masashi "Jumbo" Ozaki has been the dominant player on tour, leading the career wins list with 94, the career money list with over ¥2 billion, and winning the money title twelve times between 1973 and 1998.

The official prize money list on the Japan Golf Tour includes money won by members in the majors and the World Golf Championships events. Through 2009, all of the players who have topped the money list were Japanese nationals, except for the Japanese American David Ishii, but Korean Kim Kyung-tae became the first golfer with non-Japanese origin to top the money list in 2010.

Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.

Professional golf tours are the means by which otherwise unconnected professional golf tournaments are organised into a regular schedule. There are separate tours for men and women, with each tour being based in a specific geographical region, although some of their tournaments may be held in other parts of the world.

Golf is one of the more lucrative sports in the world for both men and women, but it has a very different structure from other sports, especially team sports. Almost all (at least 95%) professional golfers make their main income as club or teaching professionals, rather than from competition. "Touring professionals", also known as "Tournament golfers" or "Pro golfers", who make their income from prize money and endorsements, are a small elite within the profession. The very best golfers make up to 8-figure incomes in U.S. dollars from tournament play alone; when endorsement income is taken into account, Tiger Woods is the highest earning sportsman in the world, according to Forbes magazine, retaining this status in 2010 even after a tumultuous year in which he failed to win a tournament and lost his marriage and many of his sponsors after his 2009 sex scandal.

Severiano "Seve" Ballesteros Sota (Spanish pronunciation: [seβeˈɾjano βaʎesˈteɾos]; 9 April 1957 – 7 May 2011) was a Spanish professional golfer, a World No. 1 who was one of the sport's leading figures from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. He gained attention in the golfing world in 1976, when at the age of 19 he finished second at the The Open Championship (British Open). A member of a gifted golfing family, Ballesteros won five major championships between 1979 and 1988: the Open Championship three times, and the Masters Tournament twice. He was also successful in the Ryder Cup, helping the European team to five wins both as a player and captain, and won the World Match Play Championship a record-tying five times. He is best known for his great short game, and his erratic driving of the golf ball. He is generally regarded as the greatest Spanish golfer of all time.

Because of back-related injuries, Ballesteros struggled with form during the 1990s. In spite of this, he continued to be involved in the game of golf, creating the Seve Trophy and running a golf course design business. Ballesteros eventually retired from competitive golf in 2007 because of continued poor form, and in 2008 was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. After reports that he would make a return to the spotlight at the 2010 Open Championship, he did not travel to St. Andrews following the advice of doctors.

Keegan Bradley (born June 7, 1986) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. He has won two tour events, most notably the 2011 PGA Championship. He is one of three golfers to win in their major debut, along with Ben Curtis and Francis Ouimet. He was the 2011 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

Keegan Bradley is the elder child of Mark Bradley, the head professional at the Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis Club just outside Jackson, Wyoming. Growing up as an all-state ski racer in Woodstock, Vermont, Bradley decided as a teenager to pursue golf over skiing. He moved to Hopkinton, Massachusetts prior to his senior year at Hopkinton High School, where he won the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) Division 2 individual state championship in 2004. Bradley attended St. John's University and won nine collegiate events before graduating in 2008.

Bradley turned professional in 2008 and began playing on the NGA Hooters Tour, where he won at Southern Dunes in his fifth and final start of the year. Bradley won a second Hooters Tour event in 2009 at the Texas Honing Open. He played two Nationwide Tour events that year, making the cut in both of them. He attempted to earn a 2010 PGA Tour card through qualifying school but fell short by two strokes. In 2010, Bradley played on the Nationwide Tour, where he recorded four consecutive top-five finishes late in the season to finish 14th on the money list and earn his PGA Tour card for 2011. After making the cut in his first PGA Tour event, the 2011 Sony Open in Hawaii, Bradley finished T-7 the following week at the Bob Hope Classic. He added a second top 10 finish at the Valero Texas Open in April.