Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison and today's episode is brought to you
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Speaker 1: So Olympic golf got off to a pretty great start
Speaker 1: last week in Japan at Kasumigaseki Country Club with Xanderschoffle
Speaker 1: bringing home gold for the USA, And as I was watching,
Speaker 1: I just found myself wanting to know more about Japanese
Speaker 1: golf in general. You know. I knew that golf was
Speaker 1: very popular there and that the country has produced a
Speaker 1: ton of great players, including this year's Master's champion Hideki Matsuyama.
Speaker 1: And I knew there were some wonderful courses, including several
Speaker 1: highly ranked ones designed by Charles Hugh Allison in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. But to be honest, I didn't know much more.
Speaker 1: So I decided to call up Michael Wolfe, who is
Speaker 1: a golf architecture in golf history nut. If you're on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you know him as Bama Bearcat. Great follow posts, a
Speaker 1: bunch of interesting vintage photos and things like that, and
Speaker 1: he has a massive enthusiasm for golf in Japan. He's
Speaker 1: traveled there a couple of times, played a bunch of courses,
Speaker 1: and has done a lot of research into the history
Speaker 1: of those courses. So I thought it just would be
Speaker 1: fun to pick his brain about the subject. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, and Michael wants to be clear
Speaker 1: that he is not from Japan. He's an American, and
Speaker 1: so we're not trying to offer an inside view of
Speaker 1: Japanese golf culture. This is very much from a Western
Speaker 1: visitor's perspective and an appreciator's perspective. This is not an
Speaker 1: authoritative account. This is just from Michael's point of view.
Speaker 1: Wanted to be super clear about that. So with that said,
Speaker 1: here is Michael Wolf on golf in Japan.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a bride egg
Speaker 2: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frida egg,
Speaker 2: Brian egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 2: to run off the huff course.
Speaker 1: So, Michael, you've visited Japan and played golf there a
Speaker 1: couple of times, most recently in twenty nineteen, I believe,
Speaker 1: before COVID hit What were some of the highlights of
Speaker 1: your most recent trip there.
Speaker 2: The highlights, I would say, are the people in the culture,
Speaker 2: for sure. It's just it's a rare chance to play
Speaker 2: the game that I love surrounded by a completely different
Speaker 2: experience where almost everything is different except the actual golf
Speaker 2: of hitting the ball in the hole. You know, the
Speaker 2: whether it's how you arrive at the golf course, or
Speaker 2: the customs on the golf course, or the food you're
Speaker 2: eating while you're playing golf or whatever, it is, everything
Speaker 2: being so different hitting that ball in the hole, That's
Speaker 2: what I really enjoyed about it.
Speaker 1: So for an American, what are some of the specific
Speaker 1: things that would stand out as unique about the experience
Speaker 1: of golf in Japan?
Speaker 2: So I would come to it from probably the higher
Speaker 2: end of golf that the private courses. Most of the
Speaker 2: best golf courses in Japan are private, and they're mostly
Speaker 2: older golf courses. They're Golden age golf courses, and so
Speaker 2: it is very much a kind of a private golf experience,
Speaker 2: in a very ritualized experience. There's a pattern to how
Speaker 2: you play golf, and that pattern is kind of pretty
Speaker 2: consistent from club to club. So you're arriving in a
Speaker 2: sport coat more often than not, you're arriving by train
Speaker 2: or at least you're taking a taxi from the nearest
Speaker 2: train station. When you check in, they give you a
Speaker 2: kind of a leather wallet that has a little key
Speaker 2: inside and has a number, and you use that number,
Speaker 2: and you use that key for instance, for your locker
Speaker 2: or for if you're going to buy something, and the
Speaker 2: if you need to buy something or you're gonna get
Speaker 2: some food or something, you just kind of show them
Speaker 2: that number and then you pay when you check out
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. And that's true whether
Speaker 2: it's a private club or it's a public of course,
Speaker 2: the driving ranges are really just kind of for warming up.
Speaker 2: It's funny the even like the balls on the driving
Speaker 2: range are the balls are given to you almost like
Speaker 2: in egg cartons. They're like individual little slots for the balls.
Speaker 2: There's not like pyramids of balls or something you ask
Speaker 2: for balls. They give you like a little container that
Speaker 2: holds the balls and you have to like pick the
Speaker 2: balls out of the little plastic container one by one.
Speaker 2: But even to then you know teeing off and playing.
Speaker 2: So it's mostly walking at the top clubs for sure,
Speaker 2: everybody walks. It's caddies, it's older female caddies. The ladies
Speaker 2: will either drive a kind of a motorized push cart
Speaker 2: type thing where they almost like ride in the back
Speaker 2: of the push cart almost like almost like a dog
Speaker 2: sled or something, or they're actually physically pushing a cart
Speaker 2: that's got four bags on it and they are doing yardages.
Speaker 2: They're filling in divots, you know, for people, and they're
Speaker 2: keeping up with everybody, and they kind of go down
Speaker 2: the middle of the middle of the fairway and you
Speaker 2: kind of walk back and forth to them to get
Speaker 2: the clubs and things like that. They don't give you
Speaker 2: any advice as far as how to play shots. They
Speaker 2: don't read greens and things like that. It's more just
Speaker 2: the nuts and bolts of you know, keeping your clubs
Speaker 2: in order and handing you the stuff back and forth
Speaker 2: and things like that. Pace of play. I think at
Speaker 2: least the places I've been gets a bad rap. So
Speaker 2: golf is definitely an all day experience in Japan. But
Speaker 2: it's that's more because they send golfers off of both
Speaker 2: the front nine and the back nine in the morning,
Speaker 2: and then most people take a break for lunch, and
Speaker 2: then you have a separate tea time for your second
Speaker 2: nine holes, so you'll play nine holes, maybe a ta
Speaker 2: off at eight o'clock or nine o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: You'll play in two hours, and it's it's normal pace
Speaker 2: of play like all of us, you know, experience of
Speaker 2: four a round of golf. But you play the back
Speaker 2: nine and the front nine and two hours and then
Speaker 2: you take a break for lunch for an hour or
Speaker 2: two hours however long you've you've made arrangements for it
Speaker 2: to take a break for and then you have a
Speaker 2: tea time to play the back nine. So you've got
Speaker 2: to be out back out to the tenth tee or
Speaker 2: the first tee for your second nine of the day,
Speaker 2: and then you play your second nine holes in two hours.
Speaker 2: And so it can take anywhere from five to six
Speaker 2: hours if you stop for lunch. If you want to
Speaker 2: go straight through and play in four hours, you can
Speaker 2: and people do that. Which can't do is play golf
Speaker 2: in the afternoon, which is hard to believe, I think
Speaker 2: for Americans. But so you either play you know, the
Speaker 2: front of the back and then they switch. But that's it.
Speaker 2: There is no second wave of golfers that goes out
Speaker 2: post you know, post lunch or in the afternoon. I
Speaker 2: had to beg my way onto the Olympic golf course Kasumigaseki.
Speaker 2: I had played Tokyo Golf that morning, which is directly
Speaker 2: across the street. They share a property line, and I
Speaker 2: went out on Kasumigaseki at three o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and I'm not exandering to say, I was the only
Speaker 2: person on all thirty six sols of their golf course,
Speaker 2: and the the maintenance crew was looking at me like,
Speaker 2: who is this person and why is he playing golf
Speaker 2: at three o'clock in the after And there's there's no
Speaker 2: such thing as sunset rounds. I believe it was explained
Speaker 2: to me. A lot of that just has to do
Speaker 2: with where the golf courses are located, and the fact
Speaker 2: that not just the golfers have to catch the train
Speaker 2: to get back into town and and make that you know,
Speaker 2: commute by a train, but also the employees. It's it's
Speaker 2: I guess an equivalent the United States for a top
Speaker 2: club would be seminal, you know, has a has a
Speaker 2: everybody has to be off their property by five pm
Speaker 2: or whatever. And most of the top Japanese clubs that
Speaker 2: I was at, it's the same thing. When you're done
Speaker 2: there's maybe a post round drink or two and settling
Speaker 2: up any wagers. But then you got to be on
Speaker 2: the road, either to just because you've got to catch
Speaker 2: the train to get back to where you're coming from,
Speaker 2: or just because they you know, they want to be
Speaker 2: able to let their employees go home.
Speaker 1: Right. So one aspect of the private club scene in
Speaker 1: Japan that has been getting some run in American media
Speaker 1: these past couple of weeks. It's because one of those
Speaker 1: kind of cat nippy, clickbaity kinds of things, but it's
Speaker 1: it's still kind of interesting and illustrative. The dress codes
Speaker 1: at Japanese golf clubs. What can you tell me about
Speaker 1: those dress codes and the logic behind them.
Speaker 2: I think it's, you know, for for a visitor, I
Speaker 2: posted a little chart that they gave that, you know,
Speaker 2: so if you don't speak Japanese, you can at least
Speaker 2: figure out ahead of time what you're supposed to wear
Speaker 2: not where. You know, it's very in keeping with with
Speaker 2: Japanese in general. I think, you know, it's a it's
Speaker 2: a very place where customs and rules are followed and
Speaker 2: adhered to, and there's not a lot of complaining about it,
Speaker 2: and it's just kind of understood, and I find it
Speaker 2: kind of charming. I mean, I, you know, you when
Speaker 2: I traveled around the world for golf, I don't understand
Speaker 2: people who want to go someplace and have the golf course,
Speaker 2: whether it's a public course where it's perfectly acceptable to
Speaker 2: play t shirts and and you know, drink beer while
Speaker 2: you're on the golf course, or if it's a very
Speaker 2: formal place like like Mierfield in Scotland or whatever. When
Speaker 2: I go to places, I want to do what they do.
Speaker 2: I don't want to try to get them to allow
Speaker 2: me to do what I usually do back home. I
Speaker 2: want to do whatever they're doing. So if I'm for
Speaker 2: sure in Scotland, I want to play golf in two
Speaker 2: and a half hours and play alternate shot. And if
Speaker 2: I'm in Japan, I don't have any problem at all
Speaker 2: with their dress codes. So it is very formal. I
Speaker 2: would say in general, they're very neat people. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a very well dressed but also kind of well tailored,
Speaker 2: and you see that around, whether it's you know, in
Speaker 2: downtown Tokyo, whether it's watching people coming in and out
Speaker 2: of the train stations or whatever. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: place where your shoes are polished and your you know,
Speaker 2: your shirts are ironed, and it's I don't think it's
Speaker 2: they're doing that because it's a rule. I think they're
Speaker 2: doing it because that's what everyone does, and that's just
Speaker 2: that's how it handles. And it's that just carries over
Speaker 2: to golf. You know, people are dressed very neatly. The
Speaker 2: one that I would say definitely does stand out though,
Speaker 2: is that they at the top clubs, it is a
Speaker 2: very kind of old school dress too. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of navies and grays and khakis. It is discouraged in
Speaker 2: some place, is actually not allowed to wear loud colors,
Speaker 2: and in particular, I think the color red in some
Speaker 2: places is not considered a good choice, of an appropriate choice.
Speaker 2: And again it's just I think it's kind of in
Speaker 2: keeping with everything else. You know, they they're speaking in
Speaker 2: lower tones, and they're you know, they're.
Speaker 1: They're dressing and quieter colors. Yeah, yeah, I mean so
Speaker 1: the so the specific part of these dress codes that
Speaker 1: people focused on is the avoidance of brighter colors. Right Basically,
Speaker 1: it's you know, khaki and white and gray and blue,
Speaker 1: those are kind of you know, the acceptable colors. And
Speaker 1: then but if you show up, you know, wearing plaid
Speaker 1: or or wearing neon on yourself, that that's that's not
Speaker 1: considered polite, proper.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. And I think it's the juxtaposition
Speaker 2: with you know, when when we see a lot of
Speaker 2: Japanese clothing brands or whatever that are worn by the
Speaker 2: tour professional players, that doesn't seem to match. But it's
Speaker 2: a you know, it's a different kind of that's a
Speaker 2: different situation that they're in where they're advertising and they're
Speaker 2: and they're trying to get attention versus at least, like
Speaker 2: I said, these private clubs where they're very comfortable with
Speaker 2: the rules that they have and the way they do things.
Speaker 2: You you not just the not just the clothes, but
Speaker 2: but really whether it's all all of the customs of
Speaker 2: playing golf at these places, you definitely you can tell
Speaker 2: you get the sense that they were doing it the
Speaker 2: exact same way fifty years ago and that they're going
Speaker 2: to be doing it the exact same way fifty years
Speaker 2: from now. And I like that. I like that part.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted to go see.
Speaker 1: So taking a step back and taking a wider view
Speaker 1: could you give me just a general sense of how
Speaker 1: popular golf is in Japan and and maybe like which
Speaker 1: segments of the population it's it's popular in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's popular with everybody. It's as close
Speaker 2: to a national sport I would say for participation is
Speaker 2: in any other country. They have, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of what the Olympics going on. It's been quoted quite
Speaker 2: a bit, but they have more golf courses in Japan
Speaker 2: than in England and Scotland combined. There are more golf
Speaker 2: courses in Japan than anywhere else in the world other
Speaker 2: than the United States. And you know, on top of that,
Speaker 2: you have you have the driving the double decker driving ranges,
Speaker 2: and just kind of all the ways that they've adapted
Speaker 2: to their love of golf, even though it's one of
Speaker 2: the hardest places to play golf, or at least it
Speaker 2: has been for in the past. With you know, just
Speaker 2: the way their major cities are built up and their
Speaker 2: transportation hubs and things like that, it's it's very difficult
Speaker 2: for most people to actually get to a golf course
Speaker 2: and be able to play eighteen holes of golf. So
Speaker 2: they've found other ways to do it. But yeah, golf
Speaker 2: on television. I mean, I was mentioning the the ladies
Speaker 2: that caddy at a lot of the top clubs, they're
Speaker 2: all back in the caddyshack watching golf, gambling on golf.
Speaker 2: They're all in fantasy golf leagues. They get it, and
Speaker 2: they're they're into it right.
Speaker 1: So as to the overall popularity of golf in Japan,
Speaker 1: is there a substantial flip side to the private club
Speaker 1: scene in the country? You know, are there plenty of
Speaker 1: public courses that regular folks play. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much you know about this. Obviously, when you've traveled there,
Speaker 1: you focused on playing some of the most excellent courses there,
Speaker 1: which happened to be the private courses. But is there
Speaker 1: a significant public golf scene in Japan? Do you think it's.
Speaker 2: It's definitely changing. There is not a municipal golf scene
Speaker 2: of you know, government owned or non for profit golf courses.
Speaker 2: There don't. I don't know of any of that. But
Speaker 2: there is more and more of what were private golf
Speaker 2: courses that couldn't make it coming out of the bust
Speaker 2: of the real estate in the eighties and nineties. There
Speaker 2: are more of those that are now allowing you know,
Speaker 2: daily fee or semi private. I guess we would say
Speaker 2: in the United States. Just like in the United States,
Speaker 2: you know where there was you know, people put it
Speaker 2: in and you know, or two later, a couple changes
Speaker 2: of ownership, and now the people that are running it
Speaker 2: now are maybe a little bit more willing to take
Speaker 2: players at least during the weekdays, maybe not on the
Speaker 2: weekends or at prime times, just like in the United States.
Speaker 2: But yes, and more online bookings too. There are more
Speaker 2: places now where you can book actually a tea time online.
Speaker 2: Now the quality of that golf course or how easy
Speaker 2: it is to get to those places, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a reason maybe they're willing to let anybody play off there,
Speaker 2: but it's just best definitely changed. One other one that
Speaker 2: I definitely have to mention is their whole idea of
Speaker 2: park golf. So they do have lots of park golf
Speaker 2: courses and so park golf for those that don't know where.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of different names for it, but it
Speaker 2: started on. If you think of most I think Americans
Speaker 2: think of Japan as one island, but it's actually there's
Speaker 2: one main island and then there's a lot of other lines,
Speaker 2: but the island to the biggest island to the north
Speaker 2: of the main island, it started up there. So park
Speaker 2: golf it's it's essentially a it's nine holes and it's
Speaker 2: in a public park. Usually there's three or four different
Speaker 2: nine hole loops that you can play, but you play
Speaker 2: nine holes is kind of the standard, so depending on
Speaker 2: which routing you're gonna pick. And then you play with
Speaker 2: one ball that's like a whiffle ball, maybe like a
Speaker 2: solid whooketball. It's like a plastic plastic key ball, and
Speaker 2: it's big. It's much bigger than the regular golf ball,
Speaker 2: maybe like our size of a racquetball, but it's also
Speaker 2: a solid it's a solid ball. It's like a solid
Speaker 2: plastic ball. And you play with a mallet that would
Speaker 2: be like a driver head. It's like the size of
Speaker 2: a driver head, and it's probably i don't know, like
Speaker 2: twelve degrees or fourteen degrees, and so you can't really
Speaker 2: get the ball very airborne. And the holes are maybe
Speaker 2: anywhere from like one hundred yards to down to like
Speaker 2: thirty yards, and there's a bunker or two sometimes and
Speaker 2: you kind of got a player way around them. So
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of a mix between like a
Speaker 2: par three course and like croquet, and you play, you know, fast,
Speaker 2: it's a social game and you're playing, but you know,
Speaker 2: you keep score and they have leagues and things like that,
Speaker 2: and you can borrow clubs and balls or you can
Speaker 2: rent them right there. So it's again kind of a
Speaker 2: little bit more than put putt, not quite a full
Speaker 2: part recourse. And it used to be that it was
Speaker 2: just old people that old people did it, and they
Speaker 2: kind of were out in the park and rather than
Speaker 2: going for a walk because they love golf. You know,
Speaker 2: somebody came up with the idea of let's, you know,
Speaker 2: let's play golf in the park, and they viewed they've
Speaker 2: gone with the single club in the in this ball
Speaker 2: so that nobody gets killed because you're the holes are
Speaker 2: really close to each other, like you got to pay attention,
Speaker 2: and that's I guess part of it is like head
Speaker 2: on a swivel type thing and being aware of the
Speaker 2: folks around you. I don't know whether this would work
Speaker 2: in downtown Chicago, but it fits well enough with the
Speaker 2: Japanese and particularly in the outlying area, so that helps.
Speaker 1: That sounds fantastic. I love that. I mean I wish
Speaker 1: we would import that.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: when you talk about golf in Japan and the future
Speaker 2: of golf and kind of where it stands today versus
Speaker 2: twenty years ago and where it's headed, you have to
Speaker 2: mention the population as well. So there are there are
Speaker 2: about one hundred and thirty million people in Japan today.
Speaker 2: It peaked that the population peaked in twenty fourteen. Fifteen
Speaker 2: is when the crest of their population was kind of
Speaker 2: the post war baby boom. But it's it's falling dramatically
Speaker 2: in the birth rates would suggest it's going to continue
Speaker 2: to fall dramatically, and they're saying, you know, within thirty
Speaker 2: years it's going to be under one hundred million people,
Speaker 2: so they're going to lose thirty percent of their population.
Speaker 2: On top of that, like in China, like in a
Speaker 2: lot of places, a lot of their young people are
Speaker 2: moving to the major cities, in particularly Tokyo. So you've
Speaker 2: got a situation where Tokyo is growing and everywhere else
Speaker 2: in the country is losing thirty or forty or fifty
Speaker 2: percent of their population. And so as it pertains to golf,
Speaker 2: I don't know that golf is going to get much
Speaker 2: cheaper or easier to access around Tokyo, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: a third of their whole population. But in the outlying areas,
Speaker 2: I think it's it's getting much easier to play golf
Speaker 2: in the outlying areas and in much easier to access
Speaker 2: and cheaper.
Speaker 1: So if somebody's going to travel to Japan and play
Speaker 1: a little bit of golf, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2: So the first thing, you got to find a guy.
Speaker 2: You got to find a hookup, because all the good
Speaker 2: courses they're private and they are very very hard to access.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we're talking about one of their top clubs,
Speaker 2: it's every bit as hard to play one of the
Speaker 2: top three or four clubs in Japan as it is
Speaker 2: to play Augusta National or Cyprus Point or Pine Valley.
Speaker 2: As far as access, that's the bad news. The good
Speaker 2: news is that if you can find someone who's a
Speaker 2: member who's willing to host you. Those members of those
Speaker 2: clubs are very proud of their clubs and they're very
Speaker 2: happy to share the show them off to people they know,
Speaker 2: where people they kind of trust as their guests, and
Speaker 2: because it's kind of a tight type knit community, and
Speaker 2: they know that if you're traveling all the way over
Speaker 2: there to play one of the courses, you're probably also
Speaker 2: interested in seeing some of the others. If you can
Speaker 2: kind of get your foot in the door at one
Speaker 2: club with one member to host you, it's not unusual
Speaker 2: to receive an offer for them to also offer to
Speaker 2: arrange for you to visit other clubs and see those
Speaker 2: golf courses while you're there. They know that if you're
Speaker 2: traveling that far, you'd probably want to do that. And
Speaker 2: it's a pretty well defined set of top clubs. There
Speaker 2: are six or seven golf courses in Japan that are
Speaker 2: acknowledged by everyone as the top six or seven, and
Speaker 2: there's not a whole lot of dispute about it. The
Speaker 2: members of those clubs also tend to be members of
Speaker 2: more than one club, and it's a pretty tight knit circle.
Speaker 2: And so you if you can get your foot in
Speaker 2: the door now, it's hard to do from practical standpoint.
Speaker 2: So once you get in and you've got an invitation
Speaker 2: to play one and maybe you've been able to grow
Speaker 2: that into play in three or four places, you're gonna
Speaker 2: want to buy train tickets ahead of time. So the
Speaker 2: using the train system in Japan would be expensive to
Speaker 2: do on a ticket by ticket basis or a trip
Speaker 2: by trip basis, But to help with tourism, you can
Speaker 2: arrange ahead of time, so you can go online and
Speaker 2: book a ticket for I think you buy seven day
Speaker 2: ticket or fourteen day ticket and it has to be
Speaker 2: mailed to an address outside of Japan, and it has
Speaker 2: your name on it and everything, but it's at a
Speaker 2: huge discount. So for a couple of one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: you can get up. You can get a pass it
Speaker 2: a last year for two weeks, and you can go
Speaker 2: wherever you want on any of the train lines. Once
Speaker 2: you do that, then on the train lines you can
Speaker 2: either book your train tickets ahead of time and it's
Speaker 2: pretty easy to do online, or you can just walk
Speaker 2: up and as long as there's an extra seat on
Speaker 2: the train, you can you can go anywhere. And it
Speaker 2: works for all the subways, and I think it even
Speaker 2: works for like the ferries and things like that to
Speaker 2: out to some of the outer islands if you want
Speaker 2: to do some sighting with that. So you got to
Speaker 2: get your train ticket ahead of time, and then Tokyo
Speaker 2: you're probably gonna be in Tokyo, either coming or going.
Speaker 2: They actually offer a free translator for a day so
Speaker 2: you can. They have a service where the ones that
Speaker 2: I've been hooked up with tend to be I think
Speaker 2: it's like retired people who a lot of them used
Speaker 2: to travel internationally, I guess for business or for some
Speaker 2: reason or another. They've they've learned to speak English and
Speaker 2: they want to stay sharp with it, so they want
Speaker 2: to like practice, and so they'll walk around with you
Speaker 2: for the day and it's like a matchmaking so you
Speaker 2: again there's if you google online, the service, it's they
Speaker 2: you fill out a little for them, and you tell
Speaker 2: them which day you're looking at, and you tell them
Speaker 2: what your interests are. And if you say, I'm interested
Speaker 2: in golf, or I'm interested in shopping for address, or
Speaker 2: I'm interested in learning more about, you know, some part
Speaker 2: of Japanese culture, they'll match you with someone who has
Speaker 2: some expertise in that or has some interest in that,
Speaker 2: and then they give you the contact information and you
Speaker 2: email the person back and forth and they kind of
Speaker 2: act as a little you know, they help you with
Speaker 2: a little travel advice before you even get there, and
Speaker 2: then you meet at an assigned time and place and
Speaker 2: they give you six or you know, four or six
Speaker 2: hours of walking around in my case in Tokyo with
Speaker 2: me and it works out great. So you get your translator,
Speaker 2: you get your you get your train tickets. The other
Speaker 2: big one which takes thought and it takes you know,
Speaker 2: you got to be a little bit adventurous when you
Speaker 2: go to your band to do this. So you're not
Speaker 2: allowed to take golf clubs and you're not allowed to
Speaker 2: take luggage on the train. There's just no room for it.
Speaker 2: And it's and it's just not you know, you just
Speaker 2: don't do that. And so the way they get around
Speaker 2: that is they have this luggage transportation system. It's called
Speaker 2: the Black Cat. And the and the reason it's called
Speaker 2: the black Cat transportation it's like FedEx or EPs. If
Speaker 2: you're a little Ustaism fan. It's I can't believe they
Speaker 2: don't they don't. Uh, I'm just waiting for for a
Speaker 2: black Cat to start sponsoring a third warring family and
Speaker 2: the tour sponsorship wars. But the black Cat they call
Speaker 2: the black Cat. It's it's a yellow circle with a
Speaker 2: black cat and is their logo in the middle. And
Speaker 2: they're everywhere. They're at it. They have a little desk
Speaker 2: at every like hotel lobby on the corner of every street,
Speaker 2: and certainly in the airport there's a massive operation. And
Speaker 2: so the way it works is when you land, you
Speaker 2: get your luggage off the luggage carouse at the airport,
Speaker 2: and then you go over to the black cat counter
Speaker 2: and you tell them which hotel you're staying at, and
Speaker 2: you know, you say goodbye to your luggage, and you
Speaker 2: get on the train then with nothing but your wallet
Speaker 2: and and you know, your your passport stuck in your pocket,
Speaker 2: and magically, and I mean magically, the luggage appears at
Speaker 2: your hotel. And the nice hotels they even take the
Speaker 2: luggage up and put it in your room before you
Speaker 2: get there. And then when you get to the hotel,
Speaker 2: you would want to tell them then, oh, I'm playing
Speaker 2: golf at Naruo the next day. I'm playing golf at
Speaker 2: Massou the next day, and then they would send it
Speaker 2: from the hotel to the golf course. And then you
Speaker 2: would have your luggage up in your room right and
Speaker 2: you take you know, shower, and you go to bed
Speaker 2: and in the morning you wake up and you put
Speaker 2: your golf club clothes on. But then you'd take your
Speaker 2: luggage back down to the lobby and you tell them
Speaker 2: which hotel you're staying at the next day, and you
Speaker 2: say goodbye to your luggage again, and then you go
Speaker 2: to the golf course and you play all day, and
Speaker 2: you're sure enough your your golf clubs have made it
Speaker 2: okay to the golf course, and you play and enjoy
Speaker 2: yourself at the golf course, and then you're just hoping
Speaker 2: that when you get to the different hotel that afternoon,
Speaker 2: you get that somehow again magically, your your luggage has
Speaker 2: made it from the first hotel to the second hotel.
Speaker 2: But it's always worked out for me. So the black cat.
Speaker 2: So you got to learn about the black cat. If
Speaker 2: you're gonna go to Japan and you plan on moving
Speaker 2: around a lot from location to location.
Speaker 1: All right, Well that's good advice. So earlier you mentioned
Speaker 1: there is a handful of clubs in Japan that are
Speaker 1: widely considered the top clubs. They're kind of assumed to
Speaker 1: have that status. What are those clubs? Just tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about each.
Speaker 2: Sure, so I don't think it would be many of
Speaker 2: them here would be in dispute by anybody if you
Speaker 2: asked one hundred people in Japan. I think most of
Speaker 2: these would would be all agreed on it. There's not
Speaker 2: a lot of movement up and down the rankings in Japan.
Speaker 2: So Kasumigaseki, which obviously is in the news.
Speaker 1: This week, the venue of the Olympic golf competitions, that's.
Speaker 2: Right, there's thirty six holes there. It is a big,
Speaker 2: brawny golf course. It is a busy place. It is
Speaker 2: an active you know, and they're proud of their heritage
Speaker 2: of hosting tournaments. They are very interested, I think in
Speaker 2: how the course stands up to the modern game. And
Speaker 2: obviously they brought in Logan Fazzio to redesign the course
Speaker 2: under the tutleage of his father. So Kasumigaseki would be
Speaker 2: thirty six holes. The equivalent there would would probably be,
Speaker 2: you know, like a winged foot type situation. Bordering Kasumigaseki
Speaker 2: is Tokyo Golf Club, and the relationship between those two
Speaker 2: would be very similar, almost to a San Francisco golf
Speaker 2: club versus an Olympic. You know, Olympic is a busy place.
Speaker 2: It's it's known by a casual fan. If you're really
Speaker 2: an architecture geek or a golf history geek. You probably
Speaker 2: would would would like a chance to play San Francisco
Speaker 2: Golf Club even before Olympic, even though more people in
Speaker 2: the general population have heard of Olympics. So so that
Speaker 2: relationship exists. Tokyo Golf Club, like I say, they share
Speaker 2: a fence line, Tokyo Golf Club is much more private,
Speaker 2: it's much quieter. It's it's like a Marion or almost
Speaker 2: a National Golf Links of America. I would say, where
Speaker 2: it's you can trace the history of the gamer. Maybe
Speaker 2: a Chicago Golf Club would be a better comparison to
Speaker 2: Chicago Golf. We'll go with Chicago Golf because because Tokyo
Speaker 2: Golf is not the original golf course. It's it's moved
Speaker 2: several times because of they lost their lease once and
Speaker 2: and things like that. It's it's kind of and because
Speaker 2: the changing nature of the game of off over the
Speaker 2: last one hundred years, so very similar to Chicago, where
Speaker 2: you know it started in a different Downers Grove, I guess,
Speaker 2: and then moved to to Wheaton where it is now.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so that would be Tokyo Golf. You've got Herono,
Speaker 2: the most famous course in Japan, the best course. It's
Speaker 2: always number one of the rankings. It's always in the top,
Speaker 2: you know, fifty of the world rankings. It deserves to be.
Speaker 2: Herona would be like the Pine Valley. I would say.
Speaker 2: The members there are definitely very golfy. They are proud
Speaker 2: of their golf course. It is an extremely difficult golf course.
Speaker 2: The holes are all memorable, it's the views are spectacular,
Speaker 2: the shot values. I mean, however you want to judge
Speaker 2: a golf course, it's there for you no matter what
Speaker 2: kind of criteria you use in determining whether you like
Speaker 2: a golf course or you think it's a good golf course.
Speaker 2: Herona would score very well. So Herono, I would say,
Speaker 2: it would be like Pine Valley.
Speaker 1: And the part of three's like Pine Valley. At Herono
Speaker 1: are iconic, right instantly, respectisible, photos share it all over
Speaker 1: the place. Those are the images that come to mind
Speaker 1: when you think of the course. That's sort of like
Speaker 1: Pine Valley. Herono has has that kind of character.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely absolutely. Naruo would be another one. It's that's
Speaker 2: kind of down in the same neighborhood as Herono. It's
Speaker 2: down it's down more towards Kyoto. Osaka down, So you're
Speaker 2: talking about a several hour train ride from Chokyo down
Speaker 2: towards the southern part of the main island of Japan.
Speaker 2: But Narua would almost be like a sand hills or
Speaker 2: prairie dunes, not not visually, but because it's kind of
Speaker 2: off the beaten track a little bit, and it's and
Speaker 2: it's probably more of the hardcore golfers that are going
Speaker 2: to know about it, you know, you like I say,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're a golf fan or an architecture fan,
Speaker 2: you know about prairie dunes or sand hills. But it's
Speaker 2: gonna take a little bit more effort for most people
Speaker 2: to get there than it would to play wing foot
Speaker 2: or to play Tokyo golf or something like that, at
Speaker 2: least as far as the travel and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And again, everybody at Naruo, if you remember at naru
Speaker 2: and you're playing golf in the roads because you really
Speaker 2: like off and you're into it. The other one I
Speaker 2: would say that I got to play. There's a golf
Speaker 2: course called Nasou, and Nasu would be equivalent to Seminole
Speaker 2: in the United States. And I say that again not
Speaker 2: because of agronomy or where it's located. It's the opposite
Speaker 2: of Seminole. It's up in the mountains. It's way up
Speaker 2: in Border is a national park a couple hours north
Speaker 2: of downtown Tokyo. And when I say at Borders National Park,
Speaker 2: I mean it's like playing golf in Kawai or something
Speaker 2: where you're overlooking just this massive valleys and mountain peaks.
Speaker 2: It's just spectacular. And the Imperial family has their vacation
Speaker 2: home is there. And the reason I say it's like
Speaker 2: Seminol is because most of the members of the other
Speaker 2: top clubs that I just mentioned, Kasumuga, Seki or Herono
Speaker 2: or Tokyo Golf, Nasou is a place where they would
Speaker 2: like to go in the summertime when it's hot and humid.
Speaker 2: So right now, they would get the heck out of
Speaker 2: Tokyo for a long weekend and they would go up
Speaker 2: into the mountains of Nassou where it's twenty degrees cooler
Speaker 2: and not as humid, and they would play golf up
Speaker 2: in Nassau and it's you know, even you see like
Speaker 2: the bags on the bag rail and they're all you know,
Speaker 2: they're all from famous other golf course or the bag
Speaker 2: tags in their bags. They're all from other famous clubs,
Speaker 2: and guys use it like as a second club to
Speaker 2: go up there and play, and it's it's got a
Speaker 2: wonderful kind of culture around it. They've got their own
Speaker 2: like lodge house that's almost like a dormy house, you
Speaker 2: like a pine valley or somewhere. They've got this wonderful
Speaker 2: outdoor onsen, which is like an outdoor steamy bathtub. Theirs
Speaker 2: is a real one, as they'll point out to you.
Speaker 2: Most of them are like just piped in water. That's
Speaker 2: like a hot tub at most clubs, but theirs is
Speaker 2: like actually bubbling up from the ground and you can
Speaker 2: smell the sulfur in it and stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: you sit outside after you're done playing, and it's it's
Speaker 2: it's pretty awesome. So yeah, those are those are the
Speaker 2: main ones. As far as new stuff, You've got Yokohama
Speaker 2: Golf Club, which is post World War two and that's
Speaker 2: Bill Core. That was a Bill Core and it's it's
Speaker 2: kind of built in, you know, the Core Crunshaw style
Speaker 2: with the scruffy bunkers and you know kind of his
Speaker 2: his ideas on what how golf should be played and
Speaker 2: shot values and things like that, and you can kind
Speaker 2: of tell. And again it's it's almost like if you
Speaker 2: think of what in your mind a Japanese version of
Speaker 2: a Core and Crenshaw golf course, it would be like
Speaker 2: her a Bill Core golf course. And then you get there,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, this is kind of like a is
Speaker 2: kind of what you would think it would be. It's
Speaker 2: it's uh, you know, the trees are a little bit different.
Speaker 2: In the grass, it feels a little bit different, but
Speaker 2: but you can kind of understand that, yeah, that's the
Speaker 2: guy who built this is the same guy who built
Speaker 2: some of those places that I love back in back
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: And then how about Kawana. Kawana is uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, I forgot Kawana. So Kuwana is the
Speaker 2: pebble Beach. So Kawana is the only one of the
Speaker 2: Golden Age great golf courses, famous golf courses in Japan
Speaker 2: that anybody can play. It's a resort. It is uh
Speaker 2: it's you take a train south of Tokyo. It's right
Speaker 2: on the coastline. There's thirty six holes there. But the
Speaker 2: Fuji course is the is the famous one and it
Speaker 2: sits up on the cliffs. So it's it's ocean side,
Speaker 2: but it's up. It's up. You're you know, you're one
Speaker 2: hundred feet above above the water, just just like you
Speaker 2: are at Pebble Beach. You know you're not It's not
Speaker 2: a Lynx course at all. You're you're up above, but
Speaker 2: very similar agronomy to to the Monterey Peninsula kind of
Speaker 2: with the fall rolling in and out. Unfortunately, the hotel
Speaker 2: is not of the standard. It is very run down.
Speaker 2: It's I want to choose my words carefully because I
Speaker 2: was a guest at a you know, especially in a
Speaker 2: foreign country. But I think most even most Japanese hardcore
Speaker 2: golf fans natives, would tell you that Kowana could be
Speaker 2: doing better than it is right now. It's owned by
Speaker 2: a large hotel chain. They owned several resorts, and it
Speaker 2: does not seem like in the last at least in
Speaker 2: the last decade or so, there's been much investment in
Speaker 2: the hotel or in the golf course. The bones are
Speaker 2: all there. It's still a great place to play golf,
Speaker 2: but it's not what it could be, I guess, not
Speaker 2: what it should be, not what it should be.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could talk a little about Kasumi Kaseki that's
Speaker 1: the as we said earlier, the venue for the men's
Speaker 1: and women's Olympic golf competitions this week. You know, we
Speaker 1: we've already seen the men take the course on x
Speaker 1: andershof Wing Gold, Rory Sabatini Silver, ct Pen Bronze. It
Speaker 1: was a fun last round, just a delight to watch.
Speaker 1: But you know, to be honest, and I wasn't really
Speaker 1: sort of attentive to the architecture of the course as
Speaker 1: I was watching the tournament, but a lot of it
Speaker 1: sort of washed over me, Like it looks pristine, obviously,
Speaker 1: like it looks absolutely beautiful, and like it's brilliantly taken
Speaker 1: care of as a golf course. But what are maybe
Speaker 1: some of the architectural details that I missed or some
Speaker 1: of the things that stand out about the golf course
Speaker 1: itself that maybe I could look for when I'm watching
Speaker 1: the women play the course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so. It was told by me by a
Speaker 2: couple of different members of Kasumigaseki, including a couple of
Speaker 2: different ones that were decision makers in the process when
Speaker 2: they were awarded the Olympics, Japan was and Tokyo was
Speaker 2: when you know, they were the winning bid was announced
Speaker 2: golf is one of those venues that if you're going
Speaker 2: to make changes and things that needs to be done
Speaker 2: ahead of time, you can't just put it together quickly.
Speaker 2: Some thought needs to be given to it. And so
Speaker 2: the decision to with some of the changes again this
Speaker 2: is what I was told, was very much with the
Speaker 2: thought of hosting the best players in the world and
Speaker 2: and accommodating huge, what was expected to be huge crowds,
Speaker 2: and so you know, they brought in Fazzio in committed
Speaker 2: Tom Fazzio from when I was told only made one visit.
Speaker 2: It was really Logan Fazzio who made tea who made
Speaker 2: the changes, the major one of which was they had
Speaker 2: double greens. So Kazumagaseki was one of those clubs that
Speaker 2: that that had the double greens that you know, again
Speaker 2: a lot of that's another one that's really kind of clicked.
Speaker 1: Summer and winter greens basically right.
Speaker 2: Summer and winter greens. They were not original to the
Speaker 2: original Golden Age golf courses. So when we talk about
Speaker 2: Charles Allison, he did not build the double greens, but
Speaker 2: Kasumigaseki did have double greens, and from what I'm told,
Speaker 2: I didn't see it before they were there. It was
Speaker 2: a rare example of a course where the double green
Speaker 2: were both good and some thought was put into them.
Speaker 2: At a lot of courses, and a couple of the
Speaker 2: ones that I've visited, Kawana actually still has They still
Speaker 2: have a couple of double uh. They don't have double
Speaker 2: greens in every hole, but they still have a few
Speaker 2: holes where they do have the second green. They're really
Speaker 2: just an afterthought. They're They're like if you've played golf
Speaker 2: in the you know, Upper Midwest or whatever. I grew
Speaker 2: up in Cincinnati, we would have winter greens and and
Speaker 2: they're just round circles kind of the.
Speaker 1: Other temporary greens that we all know of. You know,
Speaker 1: when the green is being work on, you put the
Speaker 1: temporary green fifty yards short. That's the yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: And a lot of places that's about what they were,
Speaker 2: and both design wise and thought wise, strategy wise, there
Speaker 2: wasn't much else to them other than that, you know,
Speaker 2: you had you had the real hole with the bunkers
Speaker 2: and the fairway bunkers and the curve of the you know,
Speaker 2: everything was designed for the main hole, and then the
Speaker 2: second hole was the second set of greens where just
Speaker 2: on the other side of the same bunker. In some cases,
Speaker 2: like the slopes of the bunkers and stuff didn't even
Speaker 2: make sense for where the other green was. But that
Speaker 2: was not Kasumigaseki. At Kasumigaseki, they had put thought into it,
Speaker 2: and the men who had been working in Kasumigaseki over
Speaker 2: the years, from what I'm told, they did a very
Speaker 2: good job in a rare version where both greens were good,
Speaker 2: and both greens had strategy, enough strategy to them where
Speaker 2: there was even some question of which set you thought
Speaker 2: was the better golf course or which one was preferred.
Speaker 2: Those were removed and so those were all gone, taken
Speaker 2: out for the Olympics. And two, I think that work
Speaker 2: started like twenty fourteen, fifteen sixteen. I think in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: I think is when Kasumigaseki reopened with only one set
Speaker 2: of greens. From what I've seen on television and what
Speaker 2: you've seen on television, and from what I've seen in
Speaker 2: the pictures of what it looked like before that, it
Speaker 2: looks like they took two small greens and made it
Speaker 2: into one big green. But some things you can look
Speaker 2: for if you're a fan of architecture is that on
Speaker 2: some sides of the greens and on some of the
Speaker 2: holes where there were bunkers, you know, in front of
Speaker 2: the greens, some of the bunkering is original and they
Speaker 2: call them Alison bunkers. They literally call them the Allisons.
Speaker 2: In the Japanese big golf fans, they'll tell you on
Speaker 2: which golf courses which bunkers are still original Alison bunkers.
Speaker 2: The one that you know was pointed out to me
Speaker 2: and has you've been mentioned several times, the tenth hole
Speaker 2: at Kasumikoseki that you'll see next week, that the bunker
Speaker 2: in front of the tenth hole is still an original Alison.
Speaker 2: So even though there were two greens there at one
Speaker 2: time on that hole, at least when they combined it
Speaker 2: into one green, they were still able to, you know,
Speaker 2: that bunker still did remain. From a practical standpoint, though,
Speaker 2: the greens are much much bigger than they used to be,
Speaker 2: so they're all the greens are all, you know, one
Speaker 2: big green instead of two generally speaking, smaller greens.
Speaker 1: What's one hole out there that you think is is
Speaker 1: pretty cool that might not get featured on the telecast,
Speaker 1: particularly like like the eighteenth hole. We see a lot
Speaker 1: of the eighteenth hole during the Olympics coverage. What's another
Speaker 1: hole that people might look at and say there's something
Speaker 1: kind of cool architecturally going on here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say it's funny. The seventeenth and the eighteenth
Speaker 2: holes were like the least representative of the other holes
Speaker 2: on the golf course, and certainly the least representative of
Speaker 2: Japanese golf. I mean, eighteen to me looks like.
Speaker 1: Like eighteenth is very American, TPC Tokyo little pond in
Speaker 1: front of the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventeenth is like just a mass, It's huge. The
Speaker 2: seventeenth green is it's like twice as big as any
Speaker 2: of the greens are, at least it felt like that
Speaker 2: to me when I was there, and it's it's definitely
Speaker 2: one where you're like, when you look at it, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this isn't this can't possibly be what they felt. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's no way they would have designed something like that
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty one, thirty two, So that looks different. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that tenth I like the tenth hole. I mean I
Speaker 2: think the tenth hole is kind of a neat. It's
Speaker 2: interesting when you watch on television. There's I put it
Speaker 2: on my Twitter account. There's two trees on the right
Speaker 2: hand side. They're like evergreen trees that I've never seen
Speaker 2: evergreens like in the United States that grow straight up,
Speaker 2: like something maybe you'd see at the Pacific Northwest. But
Speaker 2: they're not real wide trees. They're just really tall and
Speaker 2: they've been there since the beginning. And the men they
Speaker 2: never the men. The first day the pin was on
Speaker 2: the right hand side, but they put the t's on
Speaker 2: the far left tan side, and so they didn't really
Speaker 2: unless you were playing a big draw that you wouldn't
Speaker 2: really flirt with the trees, especially if you're a professional golfer.
Speaker 2: For me, when I played, the tree was very much
Speaker 2: in play. If the tree, if the tea's are in
Speaker 2: the middle of the of the teeing box and that
Speaker 2: pin is as far back right as it was for
Speaker 2: the first round of the Men, you you have to
Speaker 2: cut on a part three. I mean it's a it's
Speaker 2: almost a dog leg part three. So yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: an interesting hole for me. I mean I like six,
Speaker 2: I like seven. They're all you know, I think interesting eight,
Speaker 2: six and eight have the trees and so they those
Speaker 2: are two holes where I think it's yeah, six, six
Speaker 2: and eight. They have trees that are so they have
Speaker 2: they'll have one lone tree positioned very close to the green,
Speaker 2: and it's these trees are groomed. They're like bonds. They're
Speaker 2: like giant bondsie trees. I mean they are the trees
Speaker 2: have numbers on them, and each tree has its own
Speaker 2: you know, file on you know when it was last
Speaker 2: trimmed and raised, the skirts on the trees and all
Speaker 2: these things and and on on on. Some of the
Speaker 2: holes of Sagaseki they still have of the trees are
Speaker 2: used like as an aerial defense, and they really they
Speaker 2: limit the playing angle of where you can approach the
Speaker 2: green from. You know, it's like a lot of places.
Speaker 2: I mean, I you know what I prefer to see
Speaker 2: that the world gets to see herono on television. Of course,
Speaker 2: you know if France and for the next Olympics, would
Speaker 2: everybody like to see more Fontaine instead.
Speaker 1: Of it's the the GOLFPC. Is that what it's going
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: But at least just Riviera when it when it comes
Speaker 1: to La at least.
Speaker 2: Seat bel Air, but Sea Riviera every every year. But
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean it's you know, I say that
Speaker 2: as a geek. I mean, there's practical things they got
Speaker 2: to keep in mind with with you know, getting twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand people there a day and moving people around
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So and you know, everybody talks
Speaker 2: about the format and things, but uh, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it started as entertainment. It's uh, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: And I mean I enjoy the Olympics part of it.
Speaker 2: The lesser known players that I don't know about and
Speaker 2: I haven't heard of from the countries. I enjoy that
Speaker 2: more than I do the you know, the stars of
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the two great strengths of Olympic golf an hour,
Speaker 1: the extreme international element in the field, like it is
Speaker 1: the most international tournament in golf. It could hardly not be.
Speaker 1: And then also the fact that second and third place matter,
Speaker 1: that you know, on Sunday we're thinking about not just
Speaker 1: who's gonna win, but who's going to get a medal.
Speaker 1: So there's I mean, and that's probably why I wasn't
Speaker 1: paying as much attention to the golf course on the
Speaker 1: last day of the men's tournament, because there was so
Speaker 1: much to think about other than that, but it's good
Speaker 1: to have a few things to kind of key in
Speaker 1: on the as the women play the same venue. So
Speaker 1: Japanese golf history is tremendously interesting. We can't possibly do
Speaker 1: justice to it in this last segment of the podcast,
Speaker 1: but you know a lot about it. You've done some
Speaker 1: research on it. So maybe you could tell me the
Speaker 1: story of how the first golf course got put in
Speaker 1: the ground in Japan.
Speaker 2: So, you know, Japan was close society. It's always been
Speaker 2: that way. It's more or less so now than it was.
Speaker 2: But at one time even you know, there were restrictions
Speaker 2: on where folks from the Western world could live, and
Speaker 2: it was essentially just traders, you know, were confined to
Speaker 2: the port cities and the harbors. A gentleman named Arthur
Speaker 2: Croome g r o O m Uh. He was living
Speaker 2: down in uh Kobe, which is a port city to
Speaker 2: the south. He was an Englishman. He had, you know,
Speaker 2: grown up playing golf with like a lot of his guys.
Speaker 2: He was bored, he missed playing golf and he went
Speaker 2: out on a sandbar in out in the harbor and
Speaker 2: was wagging the ball around like I would do if
Speaker 2: I was in a place with no golf for several years.
Speaker 2: Uh That lasted for about a year, and and him
Speaker 2: and his buddies pretty quickly decided, hey, that you know,
Speaker 2: I forgot how fun golf is. Let's let's you know,
Speaker 2: let's do this for real. Uh So nineteen oh two
Speaker 2: nineteen oh three he moved up to h He built
Speaker 2: a golf course up on top of Mount Roku r
Speaker 2: O Kku and it is a couple thousand feet above
Speaker 2: the harbor in Kobe looks down and they formed Kobe
Speaker 2: Golf Club. So if Kobe Golf Club was the first
Speaker 2: golf course in Japan, they were the first guys. It
Speaker 2: was at the beginning, it was it was Westerners, who
Speaker 2: would you know, practice the golf other places. They built
Speaker 2: this golf course up on top of the mountain to
Speaker 2: get away from the heat and the humidity. And also
Speaker 2: that was where the I guess they were allowed to
Speaker 2: in the land was. Kobe Golf Club is still there
Speaker 2: and it's awesome. So it is eighteen holes, it is
Speaker 2: forty one hundred yards. They will loan you a set
Speaker 2: of hickories to play it. They have restricted flight balls
Speaker 2: and the views are just spectacular. The only thing I
Speaker 2: can compare Kobe Golf Club to would be like if
Speaker 2: you've ever been to like the Grand Canyon, and you've
Speaker 2: stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and looked
Speaker 2: down at the Colorado River and like you see like
Speaker 2: the boats, you know, you see the boats and things moving.
Speaker 2: Or if you were ever like at the top of
Speaker 2: one of the skyscrapers in New York and you look
Speaker 2: down in New York Harbor and the boats look like
Speaker 2: little toy boats. When you're playing Cobe Golf Club and
Speaker 2: you're looking down at the harbor, it's you're that high
Speaker 2: up in the view as that spectacular, and you play
Speaker 2: eighteen holes and it's just it's just awesome. They've got
Speaker 2: the eighteenth they found a couple of years ago when
Speaker 2: I was visiting. They had found the original rollers for
Speaker 2: sand greens they had when it opened, it had sand greens.
Speaker 2: They found the rollers and so they were in the
Speaker 2: process of building one of the sand greens back on eighteenth.
Speaker 2: So when you play the eighteenth hole, you can either
Speaker 2: play it to the grass green or you can play
Speaker 2: it to the sand green. It's the only sand green
Speaker 2: I've ever you know, an experience with. And they've got
Speaker 2: these rollers. The clubhouse is just it's this wonderful one
Speaker 2: hundred year old place that they, you know, they the
Speaker 2: members appreciate and it's it's Park Museum and Park Golf
Speaker 2: Club and it's just it's just awesome. That was the
Speaker 2: first one it spread. The first one with the Japanese,
Speaker 2: with the natives was Tokyo Golf Club was started not
Speaker 2: too long after that. It was nineteen fourteen is when
Speaker 2: it was founded. As you might expect, it was founded
Speaker 2: by Japanese guys who had played golf, learned to play
Speaker 2: golf in other places and then brought it back to
Speaker 2: Japan and wanted to do it. The first golf course
Speaker 2: was for Japan was actually laid out by an American.
Speaker 2: It was laid out by a guy whose name I
Speaker 2: will Butcher Walter Farag, I think his name is. He
Speaker 2: built Lakeside in San Francisco, and he built and he
Speaker 2: built Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena. And I don't really
Speaker 2: know why he was in Japan, but but he was
Speaker 2: the one who was there and they talked in the
Speaker 2: land on the golf course. So Tokyo Golf was founded
Speaker 2: in nineteen fourteen. The key moment in Tokyo. In Japanese
Speaker 2: golf history was the lease expired, so they when they
Speaker 2: built a golf course, they built it in a field
Speaker 2: that was they didn't know it was on leased land.
Speaker 2: The lease expired in nineteen twenty nine, and at that
Speaker 2: point they thought, well, we got to find a new
Speaker 2: golf course. And one of the members, a man named
Speaker 2: Kamio Otani, took it upon himself and said, we got
Speaker 2: to build a new golf course. This is our opportunity
Speaker 2: to build a real golf course like they have overseas.
Speaker 2: Atani had worked in London, He had played all the
Speaker 2: Heathland courses. He knew all about Harry Colt and Swimley
Speaker 2: Forest and Saint George's Hill, and Otani was into it.
Speaker 2: He was the one who said, let's hire Harry Colt
Speaker 2: and bring him here. They hired Harry Colt. They sent
Speaker 2: Harry Colt fifteen hundred pounds. Harry Colt never showed up.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. Nobody knows why. I mean, Harry
Speaker 2: Colt was an older guy and getting to Japan was
Speaker 2: really hard. So Harry Colt didn't go, but Charles Allison
Speaker 2: did instead. Allison was up, you know, contemporary and it
Speaker 2: was a partner of Colt's. Everybody listening to Friday probably knows,
Speaker 2: but he was involved in places like Milwaukee and Pine Valley.
Speaker 2: He was in the United States, so it's a little
Speaker 2: bit easier for him to get over there. He sailed
Speaker 2: from the West coast of the United States. He arrived
Speaker 2: in December of nineteen thirty. He brought his wife with him,
Speaker 2: and he brought his builder with him, a gentleman named
Speaker 2: George Penglease Pnglase. That was in December nineteen thirty and
Speaker 2: in the sixty days from when Charles Allison stepped off
Speaker 2: the boat in Japan until when he left sixty days later,
Speaker 2: he changed the world of Japanese golf forever. The best
Speaker 2: comparison that I can make would be Alistair McKenzie's three
Speaker 2: month or four months stay in Australia. It's the same
Speaker 2: kind of thing where you know, he was only there
Speaker 2: for a couple of months. And we always forget these
Speaker 2: days that most of these guys, you know, because of
Speaker 2: the travel and stuff, they never saw the golf courses
Speaker 2: that they built. They were never finished. The grass wasn't
Speaker 2: even growing by the time they left. But what Alison
Speaker 2: did is the same thing that Mackenzie did for the Australians,
Speaker 2: which was he brought them his philosophy of how to
Speaker 2: design a course, how to raty course, the shot values,
Speaker 2: what made a good golf course a good golf course,
Speaker 2: and he and Penglaze together explained how to build a
Speaker 2: golf course. You know, the right techniques for bunker building.
Speaker 2: And when I say Alison bunkers, that's what we're really
Speaker 2: talking about. And fortunately the men that he partnered with,
Speaker 2: you know Atani at Tokyo Golf, and there were a
Speaker 2: bunch of them different places. I won't give them all
Speaker 2: the names because I'll mispronounce him, but that these guys
Speaker 2: all had in commonweos They were all educated in other
Speaker 2: parts of the world or they had gone to work,
Speaker 2: and they knew a little bit about golf, and they
Speaker 2: were all members of Tokyo Golf. But they also had
Speaker 2: little side projects going on. So so again, just like
Speaker 2: Mackenzie when he went to Australia, he was there to
Speaker 2: build the new Tokyo Golf Club, but once he got
Speaker 2: off the boat, almost immediately all the different members took
Speaker 2: u golf. They had all their little side side hustles
Speaker 2: going on, they all jumped all over them, and in
Speaker 2: two months he went to you know, nine different golf
Speaker 2: courses and helped build you know, Herono, and helped redesign
Speaker 2: the rule and helped redesign Kasumigaseki and you know, put
Speaker 2: his stamp on all those golf courses. But beyond that,
Speaker 2: he also left behind these gentlemen, these five or six
Speaker 2: or seven different guys who all had learned from him,
Speaker 2: And fortunately they were all kind of young enough guys
Speaker 2: and they had seen enough other golf courses that they
Speaker 2: were able to carry it on even after he was gone,
Speaker 2: so that, you know, even after all the devastation of
Speaker 2: the war and stuff like that, men like you know,
Speaker 2: Kenya Fujeta who design Kasumigaseki and Takata who was Herono,
Speaker 2: and they helped rebuild a lot of the golf courses
Speaker 2: that were either completely destroyed or had to move or
Speaker 2: you know, had major changes done, you know, during the
Speaker 2: war or through that, and some of the courses had
Speaker 2: even gone fallow. So unfortunately a lot of the guys
Speaker 2: at least had first hand direct connections back with Alison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your comparison of this trip to Mackenzie's trip
Speaker 1: to Australia is really apt because the big story about
Speaker 1: Mackenzie's journey to Australia and the time that he spent
Speaker 1: there isn't necessarily that he put all of those courses
Speaker 1: in the shape that they currently are. You know, they
Speaker 1: weren't finished when he left, but he managed to leave
Speaker 1: an impression on people like Alex Russell and Mick Morecambe
Speaker 1: and give them some of the inspiration and knowledge that
Speaker 1: they needed in order to carry out McKenzie's work and
Speaker 1: to do some of their own work. And it turned
Speaker 1: out to be ex and to set the course for
Speaker 1: Australia and golf course design until the present day. It
Speaker 1: seems like much the same thing happened in Japan with
Speaker 1: Allison's visit. Now, I mean, as you said, most listeners
Speaker 1: to this podcast are going to be at least a
Speaker 1: little bit familiar with Harry Colt and Charles Hugh Allison.
Speaker 1: But you know, just to give it a general idea,
Speaker 1: Colt was a revolutionary architect, right. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first architects to really blend his courses into the landscape,
Speaker 1: one of the early architects to adopt the strategic philosophy
Speaker 1: of John Lowe and others and to start to apply
Speaker 1: it to the courses that he was building and rebuilding.
Speaker 1: Alison was Colt's partner, Colt's protege, and he ended up
Speaker 1: going to Japan in colts Stead. You know, do you
Speaker 1: have a sense of Alison's style, because you know, here's
Speaker 1: the real question I'm asking you know, I've seen some
Speaker 1: Allison courses, primarily in the Midwest, and maybe it's just
Speaker 1: how they have evolved in recent years, but the greens
Speaker 1: and the bunkers are so much more kind of basic
Speaker 1: and simple at those Allison courses in America than they
Speaker 1: are in Japan, especially those some of those photos that
Speaker 1: you've posted on Twitter of Herono and other courses. You know,
Speaker 1: looking at the bunkers and greens that were built at
Speaker 1: Allison's project sites, you know, they look a lot like
Speaker 1: Alistair McKenzie's work, that they have these kind of fascinating
Speaker 1: frilly edges and the greens or wild and it just
Speaker 1: strikes me that that work is a little bit different
Speaker 1: than the work that Allison did a lot of other places.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Is that just me looking
Speaker 1: at photos and getting the wrong impression or you know
Speaker 1: what's going on there.
Speaker 2: I I mean it's tough. You know, each golf course
Speaker 2: has different crews that actually built the courses. Each one
Speaker 2: has different superintendents. You've always got to be really careful
Speaker 2: of that. But I mean he's got fantastic bunkers. I mean,
Speaker 2: they've got about the steepest bunker faces I've.
Speaker 1: Ever right, but different. I mean, Milwaukee's bunkers are way
Speaker 1: different than Herna's bunkers.
Speaker 2: They are if you go back and look at pictures
Speaker 2: though from when the courses first opened, I would say
Speaker 2: not enough a little bit, you know, different kind of
Speaker 2: sand and soils and stuff. Probably a head of that too,
Speaker 2: you know, Allison, he definitely he worked fast. We know that.
Speaker 2: I mean he the famous story is, you know he
Speaker 2: when he designed when he got to Tokyo, he went
Speaker 2: out to the course, he walked the new property for
Speaker 2: a couple of days and essentially created like a homemade
Speaker 2: or hand drawn topo map. And then he retreated to
Speaker 2: the Imperial Hotel, which is an old, frankly right beautiful
Speaker 2: hotel right next to the main railroad station there in Tokyo,
Speaker 2: and he locked himself in the room and he like
Speaker 2: did the routing in seven days and came out and
Speaker 2: like handed it to him and was like, here's your
Speaker 2: golf course. And then you know, he did kind of
Speaker 2: similar things when he rotted some of the other golf
Speaker 2: courses for these, like I said, these side projects that
Speaker 2: these guys wanted done. So we know he was a
Speaker 2: fast router. I would say, pretty consistently good par threes.
Speaker 2: I mean it's I don't you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: whether he started the par threes or not, you know
Speaker 2: that's how he started or what his techniques were. But
Speaker 2: but one way or the other, he ended up with
Speaker 2: some pretty darn good part threes. I believe the par
Speaker 2: threes at Corona are the best in the world. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're just spectacular. They're diverse as far as the length
Speaker 2: of them, you know that they're diverse as far as
Speaker 2: the shot required. They're they've got just like Cypress Point,
Speaker 2: the sixteen, you know, the fifteenth and the sixteen tolls
Speaker 2: at Cypress Point. You know, it's the perfect you know,
Speaker 2: like the quote, you know, it's the perfect melding of
Speaker 2: of mother nature and the golf coming together along with
Speaker 2: Alice from McKenzie. No what he was doing Herono is
Speaker 2: the same where there's you know, the fifth hole at Herona,
Speaker 2: the seventh the Devil's did it. Three of the four
Speaker 2: are like it's the perfect carry, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: like over the wall, you know, from the one from
Speaker 2: the teen ground to where the green sits. It's like
Speaker 2: it's the exact right distance for a middle iron or
Speaker 2: you know, and it's like it's just fortuitous. It's like
Speaker 2: it's like if a kid was designing it in his
Speaker 2: backyard that the distance is just it just worked out perfect.
Speaker 2: Or they just like had a you know, they didn't
Speaker 2: like bring bulldozers or anything. They just it just But
Speaker 2: the fact that he was able to see those would
Speaker 2: tend to make me believe that he was probably looking
Speaker 2: for those first and then did the others kind of
Speaker 2: around them. Yeah, so I'd say that it's the other
Speaker 2: thing is though, is again I don't think you can
Speaker 2: underestimate that these top clubs in Japan, it helps them.
Speaker 2: It helps kind of defend their out how outstanding they are.
Speaker 2: They have a built in defense, which is the kind
Speaker 2: of deferential nature of the Japanese culture when it comes
Speaker 2: to these Alison being Alison. They respect that and they
Speaker 2: honor that and protect it, and you don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of meddling with it and Green's committees doing different things,
Speaker 2: or at least I did not observe that. So they've
Speaker 2: got something that they can kind of trace it back
Speaker 2: to in a culture that is going to respect that. Now,
Speaker 2: there's a downside of that, which is there's not a
Speaker 2: next wave of new Japanese architects praxicing today. There's no
Speaker 2: young guys that are I mean, it's unfortunately most of
Speaker 2: the work is you know, it's all done by brand
Speaker 2: name guys from the United States or from you know,
Speaker 2: you know, Martin Eberger or kill Hanson is the architecture
Speaker 2: record for Tokyo Golf and they bring their crews over
Speaker 2: there and do the work. There's there's not a group
Speaker 2: of Japanese architects or guys over there that are you know,
Speaker 2: make a lot of decisions. It's pretty they pretty much
Speaker 2: defer to the big kind of brand name guys.
Speaker 1: And right yeah, you know, in general, the future of
Speaker 1: Japanese golf is is maybe a little bit in doubt.
Speaker 1: Right there. There are these clubs that are kind of
Speaker 1: very devoted to their traditions, as they should be. But
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, maybe there's not a next crew of
Speaker 1: golf architects who are coming up and building new courses
Speaker 1: in Japan. Maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, primarily
Speaker 1: because Japan maybe doesn't doesn't doesn't need more golf courses.
Speaker 1: That the population isn't getting any bigger and and the
Speaker 1: golfing population isn't getting any bigger.
Speaker 2: That's right there. There won't be any new you know,
Speaker 2: private clubs built. They're not needed. I don't think that
Speaker 2: there's an appetitis, you know, for financing them. And the land.
Speaker 2: The land is another issue, so that the land. We
Speaker 2: didn't talk about the land, but the land is extremely
Speaker 2: There's a reason why the you know, the the Allison's
Speaker 2: besides besides Allison and his crews, besides that, The other
Speaker 2: reason why there hasn't been a lot since then, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of great stuff since then, is the
Speaker 2: sights that he was given to work with were not
Speaker 2: allowed to be replicated. It. You know, it started in
Speaker 2: the in the build up of the war, the militarization
Speaker 2: of the country. They wanted all the good land for
Speaker 2: crops and you know, they needed the land for war
Speaker 2: production basically. But even post war, all the all the
Speaker 2: sites for land that that you could get I guess
Speaker 2: permitted for. You would say, we're all just really crappy
Speaker 2: hilly sites that were just you know, they had a
Speaker 2: blast into hillsides and stuff like that, and the routings
Speaker 2: they're all just carpbalk golf. And it's just that's really
Speaker 2: hard to overcome some of the pictures I've seen the places.
Speaker 2: No matter how good of an arc ticket it was,
Speaker 2: they weren't gonna be able to overcome that. But I
Speaker 2: wonder Japan was hot enough for a while with golf
Speaker 2: that and it was so as expensive that for a
Speaker 2: while it was cheaper for those guys to fly to
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach or to fly to roll in Melbourne, and
Speaker 2: if they wanted to play a great golf in public
Speaker 2: golf or places that they could actually get on that
Speaker 2: was easier for them and cheaper than them then sitting
Speaker 2: around hoping that someday they would be invited to play
Speaker 2: you know, Horno or Tokyo golf. I wonder if there's
Speaker 2: not an in between there that that abandoned dunes type
Speaker 2: set up or cabot or whatever, you know, where a
Speaker 2: guy could go for you know, three days and play
Speaker 2: three or four really good golf courses that were all
Speaker 2: clustered together on on you know, some resort that's that's
Speaker 2: farther away from the from the main areas of Tokyo
Speaker 2: and where the population bases are. I wonder if that
Speaker 2: is possibly a little bit more doable. A huge advantage
Speaker 2: that they have as far as the infrastructure setup is
Speaker 2: certainly that train system, and man, it's it's nice for
Speaker 2: you know, if you can imagine like just going on
Speaker 2: a three day plane or a three day train ride
Speaker 2: or a trip where you could play you know, sand
Speaker 2: hills and prairie dunes and and southern hills and in
Speaker 2: between your you're going, you know, two hundred miles an
Speaker 2: hour on a train while you're drinking a Miller light,
Speaker 2: and it's.
Speaker 1: Always probably some some beautiful scenery along the.
Speaker 2: Beautiful scenery that that makes getting around pretty easy and
Speaker 2: pretty pretty doable without having to you know, schlep your
Speaker 2: clubs through Atlanta Hartsfield Airport and stuff like that. It's
Speaker 2: it's an elegant way to travel really the way that
Speaker 2: they do it well.
Speaker 1: So Michael, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: You've definitely given me some some more stuff to look
Speaker 1: for as we watch the women play Olympic golf this
Speaker 1: week at Kasumi Kaseki. But also, I mean certainly some
Speaker 1: uh fantasizing about future trips to Japan. Hopefully that will
Speaker 1: become more of a possibility sometime soon.
Speaker 2: It's a tough invite over there, but if you if
Speaker 2: you ever find yourself with one or you know, even
Speaker 2: a toe in the door, it's worth pursuing. It really is.
Speaker 2: It's it's different enough that it's you know, doesn't come
Speaker 2: along our day. But I'm glad when I've had the
Speaker 2: opportunity that I did it.
Speaker 1: Though, I mean, I just want to go. I just
Speaker 1: want to go ride the train, that's all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't even need to play golf. I just want
Speaker 1: to go train, go to Tokyo. Sure, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks yep. This episode was edited by me Garrett Morrison.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to keep up with all the golf
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.