The staging of this week's Mitsubishi Electric Automation Women's Open marks a historic moment in Chinese golf, as it will be the first time that players on the CLPG Tour will tee off against their JLPGA counterparts.

The new look, 25 million yen ($168,200) tournament, taking place from March 20-22 at Suzhou Taihu International Golf Club, Jiangsu province, features a top field of 45 players from each tour, 18 sponsor invites and a winner's purse of 4.5 million yen.

China great Feng Shanshan, the former world No 1 who won seven times in Japan during her illustrious career, said that, with many Japanese among the world's best right now, this is an ideal opportunity for domestic golfers to learn from them in a high-level competitive environment and to see where their game needs to be in order to compete at an international level.

"At the same time, this tournament also lets the players from Japan see that we actually have a lot of good players in China, and that there is a very good Chinese tour," said Feng, the bronze medal winner at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

"We welcome the best players from all over the world to join us on the CLPG Tour. We hope that, in the future, more Chinese players can travel abroad and compete at the highest level of international golf."

Leading the Japanese charge is Yumi Narisawa, winner of last year's Aomori Ladies Open on the JLPGA Step Up Tour, Yukari Nishiyama, a two-time winner on the JLPGA Tour, and Hwang Ah-reum, the South Korean veteran who has won five times on the JLPGA Tour and three times on the Step Up Tour development circuit, among others.

The CLPG Tour will counter with such rising young talent as Zeng Liqi, the 18-year-old Nanchang native who won the Order of Merit in 2022 and now plays on the Epson Tour in the United States, Ji Yuai, the reigning Women's China Open champion, who topped the money list last year on the strength of four wins, and Ye Lei, the 2023 Women's China Open winner.

Others in the field include a strong group of Thai veterans and top amateurs Ren Yijia and Sophie Han of Hong Kong, China, who earlier this month finished equal 13th and 33rd, respectively, at the Women's Asia-Pacific Championship in Vietnam.

An extra incentive for the players is that the winner will earn a spot in the field for the JLPGA Hisako Higuchi Mitsubishi Electric Ladies Golf Tournament in October.

He Fengxiang, president of the China Golf Association, noted that China and Japan shared "profound bonds in sports exchanges", and that the co-sponsored tournament would serve as "a platform to explore new frontiers in grassroots exchanges "between the two nations.

"We are confident that the Mitsubishi Electric Automation Women's Open will not only serve as a stage for showcasing the talent of female athletes from both countries, but also become an exemplar of synergistic development between golf and various industries," he said. "This initiative will foster win-win outcomes across sports, society, economy, culture and beyond."

Similarly, Hiromi Kobayashi, chairman of the JLPGA, said the tournament would go a long way to "further deepening the exchange between the two tours and their players".

"We are confident that there will be a heated battle, as the players look to make their mark as winners of this prestigious first edition of the tournament (in its new, co-sponsored format). We hope that the fans will enjoy the tension and excitement as they watch the players contest this unique competition," she said.

"I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr T K Pen, the CLPG Tour chairman, for his tremendous support."

Zhang Wei, director and president of Mitsubishi Electronic Automation (China) Ltd, said that the spirit of golf aligned perfectly with the company's corporate philosophy of "changes for the better".

"This congruence inspired our inaugural hosting of the tournament in 2022," he said. "We remain committed to fulfilling our corporate responsibilities through such diverse initiatives."

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