Amateur Yuta Sugiura, a Sophomore at Nippon University scored 68, 3 under on the monstrous course which makes even the professionals to moan.

Yuta won at the junior tournaments hosted by Ryo Ishikawa and obtained the ticket to enter this week's Fuji Sankei Classic.
"I really thank Ryo Ishikawa for giving me the opportunity to play on professional tournaments."

This is Yuta's first appearance to Fuji Sankei Classic, and he had only 1 chance to play at Fujizakura before, and it was last year. But this over 7500 yards course didn't stop Yuta from achieving 5 birdied. Also, he made all of those birdie chances from front of the pin, which he says is the key to the smart course strategy which he sorted out.

Yuta has been on the National Amateur Team playing overseas many times and has created his original way to prepare for the game.
"On my practice round, I mark the spots that you must avoid with red pen. I will put circles and crosses marks to make it clear where to avoid, and where is okay to miss. I mark the locations around the green specifically. This really helps during the tournament."

His score is showing that his memo is working. In May at Asia Pacific Diamond Cup, he started as a leader on 1R.
"That was my first experience to be playing in contention at professional tournament and I got under too much pressure. This week I might be able to get into contention, so I want to be able to conquer the pressure and perform my best."

2 weeks ago, at Sega Sammy he scored 68 on 1R and became 11T and earned the chance to play with Ryo Ishikawa on the weekends.
"Ryo has magnificent short game around the greens. He manages to save par in tough conditions. It not easy to learn just from looking at him, but I am learning a bit by bit. I think I got better on sand saves."