This isn’t to say the other aspects aren’t impressive, because they are. But what the 22-year-old from Rangiora, just north of Christchurch, does on the putting surface is generational. It is simply first-class and has been instrumental in a wildly impressive first year as a professional.
This writer may be slightly biased – we grew up in the same town – but Kobori is destined for great things when it is all said and done. And it’s not just me – plenty of good judges believe the Japan-born Kiwi will be right up there with the likes of Lydia Ko, Michael Campbell and Sir Bob Charles as one of New Zealand’s finest exports on the golf course.
Golf Australia magazine phoned across the Tasman to delve a little deeper into the man, and found there is undoubtedly more to him than meets the eye. He loves poker, is very good at chess, grew up riding dirt bikes and hails from North Canterbury, where the locals’ eyes light up when you breathe his name. Kobori says he does all he can to get back there and loves it when he does.
We will dive into that side of Kobori later, but before we peel back the layers, let’s rewind the tape and look at the last 10 months of golf and the ascent of the young man from the Waimakariri.
Kobori rolls his rock better than most. PHOTO: Getty Images.
MOONAH LESSON
Following his sixth-place finish at the 2023 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at Royal Melbourne, Kobori decided it was time to start making a living from the game he is so very good at, turning pro at the Queensland PGA Championship. He found his feet on the PGA Tour of Australasia almost immediately, shooting 66 in the final round at Nudgee and running T7, just two shots back of leader Phoenix Campbell. It was perhaps not surprising, given Kobori won the New Zealand PGA as 17-year-old amateur.
Yet it was an early slip-up which shaped what was to follow.
At the Victorian PGA at Moonah Links, in just his second start as a pro, Kobori looked poised to pounce into the winner’s circle. After three rounds he held a six-shot lead, but errors compounded upon errors and he shot 77, running third to David Micheluzzi by three shots. A crash like that would rattle most, especially a country kid five minutes into a pro career.
Not Kobori, according to his coach and New Zealand national team mentor, Jay Carter, who spoke to his charge following the loss. Carter says Kobori was disappointed,
but had a fantastic outlook, which held him in good stead the next time he found himself in contention.
“We just talked about how good a learning it was. You can’t buy that type of experience. You can prepare for it and in training, and whatever, but until you go through it … every good player has had that,” Carter says.
Webex Players Series trophy #3 for Kobori at Castle Hill. PHOTO: Getty Images.
“Kazuma said he thought it was easy after that because the worst thing you can do in golf is lose with a six-shot lead. He said, ‘I’ve already done that, so I didn’t have anything else to worry about.’ He just accepted it and learned a bit from it, and obviously learnt a lot because he got a few more wins that season.”
That he did. Three more wins, to be precise. Webex Players Series Murray River, Webex Players Series Victoria and Webex Players Series Sydney. He claimed the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Order of Merit comfortably, punching his ticket to the DP World Tour for 2025.
MAJOR PLAYER
Kobori has gone on to make starts on the Asian, DP World and Korn Ferry Tours, and played in two major championships in 2024, the U.S PGA Championship and The Open. While he missed the cut at both majors, as with his crash at Moonah Links, he will be better for the run.
At Valhalla, Kobori shot 73-77 for 8-over, one shot behind Tiger Woods. The course in Kentucky didn’t set up well for the Kiwi; a long, wet golf course didn’t necessarily allow him to shine, and the greens were soft and reasonably easy to combat. So it would have been hard for him to show off his greatest quality, his putting.
But what an experience so early in his pro career, rubbing shoulders with some of the game’s greats.
Kobori felt as if he belonged at the top level at this year’s Open Championship. PHOTO: Getty Images.
“The PGA was a really good learning experience, more so like a kick in the face, pretty much. But you need that sometimes to motivate you,” young Kobori tells Golf Australia magazine.
“I went to play in the PGA and I was like, ‘Oh wow, these guys are playing a whole different sport.’”
In treacherous weather at Royal Troon for The Open, Kobori was three-over and looking good to make the cut. But a run of bogey-triple-bogey-bogey saw him miss the weekend by one shot. It was a disappointing way to go out. Yet for the most part it displayed all the qualities to be successful in those conditions.
Just last week Kobori finished in a tie for 12th at the Alfred Dunhill Links, rocketing home with a seven-under 65 at the Old Course. Quick learner.
“By the time the British Open rolled around, I wasn’t as far off,” Kobori says. “Obviously, I finished round two a bit crap. But at one stage, I was in the top 20. So obviously, I’m taking massive confidence from that.”
He could also take confidence from those who scored worse than his +7, a list of luminaries which included Bryson DeChambeau (+9), Ludvig Aberg (+9), Viktor Hovland (+10), Rory McIlroy (+11), Cameron Smith (+12) and Tiger Woods (+14).
COACHES’ WORDS
Coach Jay Carter knew he had something special on his hands when Kobori won that New Zealand PGA tournament in 2019.
“It was an Australian PGA Tour event; he was only young, 17, and shot 22-under to win against some pretty seasoned Aussie PGA tour players,” Carter says. “And he had no right to win that competition.”
Kobori in his amateur days representing Canterbury. PHOTO: BW Media/Canterbury Golf.
Yet Kobori’s rapid rise doesn’t surprise Carter. He says that if you analyse the last year of Kobori’s amateur career, it was evident he would have a reasonably smooth transition into the pro leagues. There were big amateur titles, including the Western Amateur in the USA and the Eisenhower Trophy, which was played on a seriously long golf course, the Abu Dhabi Golf Club.
It proved that he will not be confined to short venues. He is so uber-talented, he will find a way.
Carter first laid eyes on Kobori when the boy was 13. The mentor admits that, initially, the kid didn’t massively stand out. In fact, he looked like a tiny bloke, albeit one who punched above his weight. Typically, Carter says, it’s the kid who tags it; it’s the ball-striking machine who captures your attention. Not the little bloke who plots his way around and chips and putts. Kobori’s ability on the greens was a defining feature nonetheless.
“Because he didn’t hit it miles, he didn’t really stand out,” Carter says. “The pure ball striker that hit it miles, they stand out like a sore thumb.
“But the little dude that just chips and putts. Some people would say, ‘Oh, he’s not that good. He just putts well.”
Kobori consults caddie and Kiwi tour pro Tyler Wood at the PGA Championship. PHOTO: Getty Images.
Yet it was evident Kobori was going to become a top-quality player. He was – and remains – a fierce competitor who thrives on rolling his sleeves up and getting in the fight. The more challenging, the better. As Carter shares with us, Kobori is a deep and critical thinker with an incredible work ethic and attention to detail.
“Definitely putting [stands out], but he loves being in the fight,” Carter says. “He’s little. He doesn’t hit the ball particularly far. So there’s a bit of an environmental thing with that. He just had to putt well to compete, going back to that competitive nature of his.
“He’s not going to beat anyone with his length off the tee or overpower a golf course. The only way he could really compete was to chip, and obviously his putting.”
But that work ethic? Carter tells a tale of “AimPoint”, the green-reading technique used by many top-level golfers, including Adam Scott and Max Homa. Carter’s yarn paints a picture of just how diligent Kobori is, how meticulous his attention to detail.
“We were in a junior camp and someone asked me to help them with AimPoint,” Carter says.
“It was after Kazuma had won in Australia.
“And they were expecting really quick results, and we do get that, obviously. But Kazuma made the comment, I don’t know how old he was, 21, I think, at the time. He said, ‘I first learned AimPoint when I was 14, and I’ve been practising it every day since.’
“Just that work ethic and attention to detail, and he’s not looking for a shortcut. He’s really diligent with his processes when it comes to practice. He doesn’t take any shortcuts. And he’s aware that it’s all a long-term process.”
RIGHT: PHOTO: BW Media/ Canterbury Golf.
It is perhaps not surprising that Kobori is good at things outside golf which require critical thinking. He enjoys poker and is a talented chess player; a great insight into how he plays the game. He never looks frazzled, almost adopting that ‘poker face’ when he plays. He is clearly a deep thinker.
Carter agrees. “He is pretty quiet. He is probably a bit of an introvert in many ways.
He is a critical thinker. Again, that helps.
He loves his poker. I don’t know if he loves chess, but he’s good at chess. And to me, that makes sense. He has a bit of a poker face when he’s playing. I reckon he doesn’t give too much away, and he understands the game,” Carter says.
Kobori laughs when we tell him we’d heard he was a good chess player. He also admits he does love playing poker. It is the strategy, the calculation which he loves about both hobbies.
“I do play chess. I enjoy chess. I am not very good at it, though. I probably don’t play enough, but I do like the strategy part of it,” he confesses.
“Also, poker. I love that game.”
DEEPER DETAIL
Almost everyone who picked up this scribbler’s phone calls in the writing of this yarn echoed the same sentiments. Kazuma Kobori lives and breathes the game of golf. But you can tell a lot about the person he is by the way people in the circles he grew up in speak about him.
The last two PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit winners, Kobori and David Micheluzzi. PHOTO: Getty Images.
Mike Taylor plays golf out of Pegasus, just east of Rangiora, where Kobori is a member and played interclub right up until turning pro. Taylor also manages the Canterbury interprovincial sides and was responsible for taking away a young Kobori on a few trips when he was playing in the red and black of Canterbury. He speaks glowingly of their tilts at national titles.
Taylor says Kobori would inevitably end up as a quality pro because he had been training and dedicating himself like one in the years leading up to when he actual did turn pro.
“Him and his sister [Momoka] would be practising pretty much eight hours a day on Saturday, Sunday and after school, during the week,” Taylor tells Golf Australia magazine.
“When he practised, in the last few years, he’d had this goal of being a pro. So he was basically a professional amateur. It was [essentially] his job to practise so much, even though he was an amateur.”
There are some classic stories of teaching Kazuma some life skills while he was away at national tournaments.
“I wouldn’t say he’s the tidiest person when you go away,” Taylor laughs. “You usually share a room. You go into his room and whoever he’s with. Within a day, the floor’s covered and clothes and bits and pieces.
“We had to teach him how to use an iron one year. He said, ‘I’ve got to learn to do this because when I leave New Zealand, I will have to do all this myself.’”
Taylor spoke about Kobori’s love for training and willingness to come back and help local juniors.
Kobori learned a lot being involved in national titles with Canterbury. PHOTO: BW Media/Canterbury Golf.
“He’s fairly giving. He’s just such a down-to-earth person. Anytime we had practice drills or anything, he would often bring out his ideas and what he does for practice and just be happy to give all his knowledge,” Taylor says.
“We have young kids at our club, and he’s happy to give them a little bit of advice, anything like that.”
Kobori says he takes joy from helping others, “which also helps me”.
“If I can get one kid out of those juniors to learn something and pursue their game and make it to the next level, eventually that’s actually going to help me because hopefully that kid’s going to beat me,” Kobori says.
“And then I’m going to be so motivated to beat that kid that we get better together. I have always had the mentality that great players come in batches. So instead of trying to push someone else down to bring yourself up, I always thought it was more beneficial if we got better together by healthy competition.”
COUNTRY KID
Rangiora is a small town, 30 minutes as the crow flies north of Christchurch and is responsible for producing some burly All Black second rowers like Brodie Retallick and Todd Blackadder. Proper hard men. Oh, and an up-and-coming sportswriter penning this piece who possesses no comparable traits…
Although there is a distinct difference in stature, Kobori has that steely, country-town mentality which has been discussed throughout.
He grew up as a typical kid in the area riding dirt bikes. He still enjoys riding, but rarely dabbles anymore because – to state the obvious – it is risky business. He played different sports, such as basketball, and had a crack at soccer. Momoka, also a professional golfer, was a bit of a gun at both basketball and soccer, representing North Canterbury at age group level.
Rangiora Golf Club. PHOTO: Supplied.
But Kobori admits his mind was always on the golf; he wasn’t quite as dedicated to the other endeavours.
“I played basketball for a couple of years and then realised I was not that good. I had to play something else, though because golf was like, if you play too much, you actually lose your mind,” Kazuma laughs.
“I played soccer instead, just to keep my fitness up, pretty much. But I always knew that golf was going to be my main thing.”
Rangiora Golf Club secretary Sue McFarlane didn’t know the exact age he and Momoka joined the Golf Club, but thinks he would have been roughly 10 when he was shadowing his sister around the course and the practice facilities. He made an immediate impression – as you would expect – with his playing talent and his ability to fit in with members who were 50 or 60 years his senior.
“He would often be out there playing with the men on a Saturday, who were 60 or 70. He never had any trouble fitting in and always had a smile on his face,” McFarlane says.
He was always going to be good, too. But he was so good, he was always away playing national or amateur golf tournaments. As a result, he ended up only contesting his club championships once – and won.
As with most country kids, Kobori always goes back to the club to practise or play, even spending time there, and at Pegasus GC just down the road, before he jetted off to The Open. And it is like he is part of the furniture; nobody bothers him, though he is always up for a chat. Sue describes them as just really nice kids from a great family.
Some golfers don’t like to play casually, but Kobori loves returning to his home golf courses to play with his mates.
Min Woo Lee shows Kobori the way at the PGA Championship. PHOTO: Getty Images.
“Playing golf back home is pretty fun. You don’t really get to play many events with minimal pressure, so having a slap for 18 holes back home with the mates and then having a beverage or two afterwards, you don’t really get to do that. So yeah, it’s good. I try to do it as much as I can,” Kobori says.
“I assume not many people have heard of Rangiora Golf Club, other than I played there. It’s a great club. There’s obviously a driving range there, but they’ve just pretty much made rules just for me, where I can hit it from anywhere. I can go out on the course, take multiple golf balls and try different shots. They have given me the whole place to myself. It’s obviously a massive part of how I’ve developed my golf game.”
Earlier this year, both Kobori kids returned to do a Q&A at RGC and pose for photos with members, before the club unveiled plaques for their incredible talents.
“Rangiora Golf Club is a massive part of who I am today, so I’m very grateful for the support, and hopefully I keep putting it on the map.
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