The leadership of Japan's Professional Golfers Association (PGA) will resign en masse after two of its executives were found to have played golf and socialized with an underworld boss, a report said Wednesday.

All the 91 PGA representatives will voluntarily step down to help restore public trust in the body, the Jiji Press news agency said.

Between March and June, then PGA vice-chairman Shinsaku Maeda, 61, and then board director Tadayoshi Bando, 67, were found to have played golf and dined with the head of a yakuza-organized crime group in the southern island of Kyushu.

The PGA bars its representatives from socializing with organized crime syndicates.

Agencies - Global Times