2023 TOTO Japan Classic Round 1 tee times and pairings explored

The TOTO Japan Classic begins this Thursday (November 2) at the Taiheiyo Club Minori Course in Omitama, Ibaraki, Japan. It is the final stop on the LPGA Tour's Asian swing in 2023. The tee times have been announced with some interesting pairings.

The tournament begins at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday (all times are Eastern Time). Players have been divided into 26 threesomes that will tee off every 11 minutes from holes 1 and 10. The final group is scheduled to tee off at 9:12 p.m. on Wednesday.

The top-ranked golfer in the TOTO Japan Classic, Hyo Joo Kim, will tee off from hole 1 at 8:39 p.m. on Wednesday. Kim is seventh in the Rolex Rankings and fourth in the Race to the CME Globe Season standings with one win and nine top-10 finishes on the season.

The South Korean will be joined by another LPGA Tour star, Jennifer Kupcho. Rounding out the group is one of the top-ranked players on the Japanese Tour, Chisato Iwai.

Meanwhile, defending champion of the TOTO Japan Classic, Gemma Dryburgh will tee off her first round at 9:12 on Wednesday. The Scot needs a good result at the TOTO Japan Classic as she currently sits 60th on the CME Globe Tour Championship leaderboard, on the verge of failing to qualify for the season's final event.

Dryburgh will be joined by Jiyai Shin, ranked 15th in the world, and Kokona Sakurai, a Japanese player with four wins on the Japanese Tour in 2023.

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A look into 2023 TOTO Japan Classic first round's best pairings

The strongest group in the first round of the TOTO Japan Classic will be Rose Zhang, Hannah Green and Ayaka Furue.

Green is one of the nine Major champions in the field (Hyo-joo Kim, Yuka Saso, Jennifer Kupcho, Danielle Kang, Jiyai Shin, Eun-hee Ji, In Gee Chun and Hinako Shibuno). But the Australian also had a good season with one win and three top-10 finishes.

Zhang is one of the best projected rising stars on the LPGA Tour. She already has one win at this level and came close to another at the Maybank Championship a week ago.

Furue is the highest-ranked Japanese player heading into the CME Globe Tour Championship (9th). She is ranked 22nd in the world, which places her third among Japanese women. She has eight top-10 finishes this season.

Another very interesting group will be Danielle Kang, Hinako Shibuno and Miyu Yamashita. Kang and Shibuno are well-known worldwide, but Yamashita is not. However, her credentials speak for themselves.

Yamashita is ranked 20th in the world despite playing almost exclusively on the Japanese tour. She has four wins there, five runner-up finishes, four third-place finishes and four other top-10s in 29 tournaments played in 2023. She also finished T21 at the AIG Women's Open.