The 2019 Japan Taiwan Friendship Udon-Ken Ladies Golf Tournament, jointly sanctioned by the Taiwan LPGA Tour and the Japan LPGA’s Step-Up Tour for the third year consecutively, will tee it up this Friday at the Mannou Hills Country Club in Kagawa, Japan.

The JPY20,000,000 event will be played through three days, 54 holes. The one winner emerging from 75 “JSU” Tour players and 27 TLPGA Tour members on Sunday will take away a JPY3,600,000 top prize.

Tsai Pei-Ying (蔡佩穎), this year’s ECC Ladies Golf Tournament champion at the Kitarokko Country Club, is sitting second on the order of merit on the JSU Tour and, at the moment, topping the TLPGA Tour money list. Hsieh Yu-Ling (謝瑀玲), who’s also playing on both tours, will return on Japanese soil after her victory a fortnight ago at the Party Golfers’ Ladies Open in Changhua, Taiwan, which ended Hsieh’s 7-year title drought.

The in-form Chang Ching-Ling (張靖翎), finishing second at the recent Party Golfers’ Ladies Open and KENDA Tires TLPGA Open, will be hoping to made that one final stride this week.

Teen sensation Wu Chia-Yen (吳佳晏), who will be looking to score her second TLPGA Tour win in her young career, is also in the Taiwanese squad, joined by Doris Chen (陳彥寧), Chen I-Wen (陳依妏), Chen Szu-Han (陳思涵), and Kuo Ai-Chen (郭艾榛).

Current no.1 on the JSU Tour order of merit, Nook Sukapan of Thailand is in a campaign to hopefully lift an impressive fourth trophy on the circuit. In fact, all top-5 on the tour will be in the field, including Tsai, Sumika Nakasone, Asuka Ishikawa, and Miki Uehara, of what is the second to last event of the 2019 season, as they set their sight on the year-end no.1 honor.

The tradition of “Japan-Taiwan Friendship Tournament” has long been celebrated by golf athletes in both countries. In 2016, former JLPGA Tour player Tseng Hsiu-Feng (曾秀鳳) proposed to hold an official tournament in Japan serving to provide interaction and mutual learnings between golfers on the two professional women’s tours, as the TLPGA Tour had matured into a higher status.

The idea quickly gained the support from JLPGA Commissioner Hiromi Kobayashi and TLPGA chairwoman Cheng Mei-Chi and recognized by local sponsorships. On the 2017 Taiwan-Japan Tourism Summit Forum in Kagawa, which is famous for its "Sanuki Udon Noodles", the two associations brought the idea to life with the first staging of the Japan Taiwan Friendship Udon-Ken Ladies Golf Tournament on the same year.

The champion on Sunday will win a sponsor slot into the Fujisankei Ladies Classic (main JLPGA Tour) and the Hitachi Ladies Classic (TLPGA Tour) in 2020, and will be sent directly into the third-stage of the JLPGA Tour qualifying event for the next season. The victor will get a year’s worth of Nishino Kinryo Japanese Sake as a bonus prize.

Special prizes up for grabs include a JPY500,000 cheque, provided by Imabari Shipbuilding, for players to ace the 17th hole in the last round, as well as a JPY300,000 cheque, provided by Nishino Kinryo, for players to eagle the 18th hole.

First-round action will tee off at 7:45 on Friday morning. There will be a cut after two rounds to allow only the top-50 and ties into the final round.