The venue for this year's Asia Pacific Diamond Cup is held at Yuta's hometown, Chiba Prefecture. Diamond Cup changes it's venue yearly, and this year it will be held at Sobu Course of Sobu CC from May 9th. Due to the Japan Tour schedule changes, it will be held in May, but last year it was in September at Musashino CC in Saitama Prefecture.

Yuta was looking forward to defending the title on the ANA Open last year, which was supposed to be held a week before the Diamond Cup, but it was cancelled due to Hokkaido earthquake. Yuta went to Hokkaido anyway to give support to the victims of the earthquake. Saw the devastating reality of the disaster and reported to the golf fan through TV news show.

"What could a professional golfer, an athlete could do in a situation like this?" Yuta really felt helpless. He had deep relationship with the people in Hokkaido with the win he has made 4 years ago at that tournament.
As one of the former Player's Chairman, Yuta acted quickly.
"I must send them lots of smiles."

His wish came true as he won the next week's tournament, Diamond Cup and has become the 11th player of the Japan Tour to reach the 20th career victory at 32 years old and 275 days. Which was the 3rd youngest record following Tsuneyuki Nakajima and Jumbo Ozaki.

This year, Yuta was away from Japan last week to play at the EPGA and Asian Tour co-event "Volvo China Open". He made a charge on the final round and finished at 11th. Diamond Cup is also co-hosted by Japan and Asian, and the venue changes every year, and this year it is at Yuta's hometown. He is all pumped up to defend his title.

On the other hand, Ryo Ishikawa who has WD last week due to the back injury has decided to DNP from this week's Diamond Cup