Japan wins women’s footgolf bronze at World Championship in Mexico

Japan left Acapulco with a women’s bronze medal and a new benchmark in the men’s individual event, but the broader audit from the 2026 FIFG FootGolf World Championship was more revealing than the podium count alone. Over 12 days at Turtle Dunes Country Club and Tres Vidas Golf Club, Japan showed it could still produce elite finishes, yet the men’s and senior men’s brackets made clear that the nation is still leaning heavily on a handful of standouts.

The women’s side delivered Japan’s cleanest result. Rina Akutsu finished third in the individual competition, matching Naoko Miura’s third-place run from the 2023 World Cup and tying the best Japanese finish ever in World Cup individual play. Japan then beat Turkey 3-0 in the bronze-medal match to finish third in team play, a result that confirmed the women remained the country’s most reliable division on the biggest stage. In a tournament that drew 1,240 players from 64 teams and more than 60 nations, that kind of podium finish mattered.

The men’s team showed progress at the top, but not enough depth to threaten the medal rounds. Ryuga Takada tied for eighth in the individual standings with 268 strokes, 22-under par, the best finish ever by a Japanese man at a World Cup. Takeshi Aoki placed 29th at 274 strokes, 16-under, which gave Japan two players inside the top 30 but only one inside the top 10. In team play, Japan fell to Argentina 5-2 in the round of 16, then bounced back to beat Portugal 5-1 and finish 13th. The result was respectable, but it also underlined the gap between a single elite performance and a lineup deep enough to challenge the power nations.

The senior men followed a similar pattern. Japan’s roster included Hayato Kobayashi, Tomokazu Tomizawa, Manabu Shirakawa, Yuji Kurihara, Kunishi Totani, Shin Arai, Atsushi Ito and Hiroyuki Oka, with Masayuki Shimoda withdrawn, but the bracket results were limited to a round-of-16 loss, 4-0 to Mexico, and a 3-1 win over Slovenia for 15th place. Japan had enough to avoid a collapse, yet not enough to turn that division into a podium threat.

That is what made Acapulco, the fifth FootGolf World Cup and the first held in Central America, such a useful measuring stick for Japan. The women met expectations with bronze, Akutsu matched a national standard, and Takada set a new one. The question the tournament left behind is whether Japan is building a fuller World Cup program, or still relying on isolated stars to carry the banner.