Gorufu-dØ:  A Way to Understand the Japanese through Golf

 

Introduction

 

Sports and an interest in Japanese culture have been big influences in my life so far.  At the age of 5, I became a student of karate-dØ.  My interest to train in the martial arts was sparked by the “strange and exotic” ideas that Mr. Miyagi taught to Daniel-san in the movie Karate Kid.  As I saw that these Japanese-based ideas empowered Daniel-san to win the big trophy in the tournament, I also wanted to learn them in order to become a karate champion. 

My training in karate-dØ would turn out to be quite a bit different than I expected.  Even though it was not like the “wax-on, wax-off” method portrayed in the film, I still was exposed to many Japanese ideas and customs.  In my practice, I first learned the idea of respect.  I would show my respect for others by bowing to my sensei (teacher), sempai (persons of higher rank), and other fellow students, upon greeting and leaving them.  Furthermore, I would pay homage to the Founder of the karate association at the beginning of every practice.  Upon every command from my sensei, I would dutifully respond with a resounding “os’su!”  In addition to respecting people, I would also learn how to revere the place where I practiced.  Not only did I bow every time I entered and exited the dØjØ (practice room), but in the middle of every practice, it was required by all students to clean the floor.

Training day in and day out, I inevitably developed a deep sense of community from my practice of karate.  I built a close relationship with my sensei and also felt great camaraderie with my fellow students.  In practicing the physical self-defense techniques, we would often perform these movements in unison.  Moreover, at the beginning and end of each practice session, everyone would line up according to rank and collectively meditate.  Even as a young kid, I enjoyed this feeling of togetherness.

In my years of training, I began to realize there was something more to learn than just the physical aspects of self-defense.  The full term karate-dØ means “the way of karate,” which includes developing the mind and spirit in addition to the body.  These ideas were cultivated by the disciplined practice of kata, the form of techniques or prescribed movements against an imaginary opponent and kumite, controlled contact sparring.  Through my training, I eventually learned self-control, attention to detail, patience, perseverance, and a method to do things properly in a prescribed manner.  I remember my sensei telling me that practice does not make perfect, rather, “perfect practice makes better.”  By instilling this idea into my mind, I realized that competing in national tournaments, winning trophies, and performing in front of hundreds of people was not difficult.  Rather, the effort required to practice four times a week for two hours a day was the most arduous task.  But soon, this became my way – a routine way of life.   

      When I turned 13 years old, I stopped my formal training in karate and turned my attention to golf.  After making one solid, long and straight shot, I was hooked.  The challenge was how to repeat that same shot, which seemed very elusive.  I found the key to repeating that one sweet shot was to conduct the “perfect practice” I learned during my karate training.  I realized many aspects of my karate training carried over to golf and used what I learned previously as a basis to succeed in my new sport.  I paid particular attention to having the correct form, balance, focus, and attitude.  Practicing my golf swing was much like practicing my kata.  I found golf to be a new outlet for practice and I grew to love the game not only as a way to spend time with my father, but also to experience the many challenges and fascinating aspects it presents mentally, physically, and spiritually.  Today, it has become the sport I am the most passionate about playing. 

     Currently, as a student majoring in Asian Studies, I have rediscovered my interest in the ideas of my Japanese heritage.  After reading how Eugen Herrigel, author of Zen In the Art of Archery, went to Japan and learned Zen Buddhist ideas from archery, I realized that I could discover just as much about the Japanese through their interaction with the game of golf.  Therefore, golf serves as a medium to understanding Japanese society, culture, and way of life.

Chapter 1 will provide the historical development of golf in Japan up until the present.  My second chapter will focus on how golf appealed to the Japanese during the Meiji era.  In the third chapter, I will explore the reasons why the Japanese today become motivated to play the game.  Chapter 4 will discuss how the idea of practice is important in the Japanese way of life.  I will conclude with a personal account of how gorufu-dØ has led me to more than just an understanding of Japanese society.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

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An Unlikely Pairing:  A History of Golf in Japan

 

 

 

 

 

Golf:  A game probably evolved from Dutch antecedents, first recorded in Scotland in the 15th century, and played under codified rules since the middle of the 18th century; now consisting of hitting a golf ball, using an array of golf clubs, by successive strokes into each of nine or eighteen holes on a golf course.

 

- From the Rules of Golf, published by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews, Scotland, and the United States Golf Association, Far Hills, New Jersey[1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1  

An Unlikely Pairing:  A History of Golf in Japan

 

The chances that I would be paired with Tiger Woods in a golf tournament are highly unlikely.  How golf ever got started in Japan seems just as unlikely.  At first glance, golf, or “gorufu” as the Japanese call it, would be the last game one might expect to see in Japan.  Golf courses take up a lot of land – something which a small island nation like Japan has very little.  Because space is limited and land is very expensive, it would seem that building golf courses would not make a lot of economical sense.  Furthermore, because Japan is 67 percent mountainous with heavy forest coverage, these conditions are hardly conducive for golf course construction.  On another level, golf is a foreign sport.  Unlike kendØ, aikidØ, or karate-dØ, golf cannot be traced back to the martial origins of the samurai, so it would seem difficult that a Japanese could relate to this sport.  Yet, in spite of all these apparent incompatibilities, the golfing population in Japan today is the second largest in the world behind the United States.  There are more than 2,000 golf courses using 1.25 percent of the nation’s land, 10,000 driving ranges, and more than 13 million or about 10 percent of Japan’s population play golf – and pay exorbitant prices to do so.[2]  In short, many Japanese are considered “gorufu kureij¥” (“golf crazy”), as the game has certainly caught the fascination of the inhabitants of this island country.[3]

In this section, I will explore the history of golf in Japan.  I will consider why golf came into Japan at a particular time and place and illustrate how the Japanese have firmly embraced the game since its introduction into the country.  Lastly, I intend to show how the game has become one of the most popular sports in Japan today. 

 

Transplanting Golf into Japan

Golf was introduced into Japan during the latter half of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) – a time of rapid and great change.  Almost a half-century prior in 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry landed on the shores of Japan and forced the island nation to open up its ports after many centuries of near isolation.  Under the Harris Treaty of 1858, Japan had to open Edo, Nagasaki, Niigata, Yokohama, and Kobe to foreign trade.[4]  In the following years, the result was a new influx of Western goods, but more significantly, Japan began to experience Western culture to a greater level.  With the Meiji Restoration of 1868 ending over two hundred years of Tokugawa rule and ushering in a brand new era for Japan, the new government leaders were ready to embrace ideas of the modern West.  They were intent on making Japan a modern economic power by adapting Western technology and new institutions.[5]  Kenneth B. Pyle illustrates this enthusiasm to adopt and accept all things Western:

One of the most extraordinary features of modern Japanese history is that sudden change in its view of the world.  The Japanese as a people demonstrated extraordinary “intellectual mobility” – an unusual flexibility of thought, which allowed the predominant opinion of its leaders to shift very rapidly from xenophobia to xenophilia, from hatred of Western barbarians to adulation of Western culture.[6]

 

This open attitude to accept and embrace foreign things indeed paved the way for golf’s implementation and success few decades later.

During the Meiji Period, the advocates of Japan’s modernization began to embrace many Western customs including wearing top hats, carrying pocket watches, and eating beef.  Even though the adoption of Western sports was not the modernizers’ main concern, an array of sports did find their way into Japan.  Government attempts to modernize the military led to the introduction of gymnastics, fencing, rifle-shooting, and skiing.  The European and American traders’ passion for baseball, football, rowing, and tennis brought these sports to the trading communities of Japan’s port cities.[7]

Golf was first brought to Japan via its port city of Kobe.  In 1901, Arthur Hesketh Groom, an English tea merchant, began construction on a four-hole golf course at Mount RokkØ near Kobe.  By 1903, the course expanded to nine holes and the Kobe Golf Club (神戸ゴルフ倶楽部), Japan’s first golf establishment, was founded.[8]  This seemingly easy and painless implementation of the game may be attributed to a particular group of people that lived in Kobe:  the wealthy merchant class.[9]  Because this group had money and the enthusiastic will to embrace foreign things, it would not be hard to assume there was little resistance to adapt a sport that carries a lot of prestige.  Just as many modernizers wanted to learn from Westerners at work, they were just as eager to emulate Westerners at play.

                                 

Figure 1. Arthur Hesketh Groom at the Kobe Golf Club in 1903.[10]

 

Many scholars could see this relatively trouble-free implementation of golf to be proof of “cultural imperialism” of the West in Japan.[11]   However, much of the time, coercion played a minimal part, and the Japanese willingness to take up the game was primarily on their own accord.  For example, Arthur Hesketh Groom not only introduced golf to Japan, he also brought the game of cricket.  Even though both golf and cricket were introduced around the same time, golf has greatly surpassed cricket in popularity.  A few Japanese tried cricket, but it never became popular.  According to Guttman and Thompson, “Today cricket is almost the only major foreign sport that does not interest Japanese at all.”[12]  They also note, “Although it was impossible to have predicted it in the Meiji period, golf which was obviously even less well suited than cricket to Japanese terrain, was destined to become the preferred sport of the Japanese corporate elite.”[13]  This evidence seems to point out that the Japanese embraced golf not just because it was Western, but perhaps because they discovered something unique and appealing about the game itself. 

 

 

Figure 2.  On the tee box of Japan’s first golf course in Kobe.[14]

 

Land of the Rising Golfers

From the start, the Japanese did not hesitate to embrace golf.  During the first winter after the original course at Mount RokkØ was completed, there was so much snow on the course that the Japanese built another six-hole course near by where there was less snow.  This course became the Yokoya Golf Association (横屋ゴルフ・　　

アソシエーション).  Fukui Masaharu[15] (福井覚治), a young Japanese caddy of this course, would later become the first professional Japanese golfer in 1920.

                              

Figure 3.  A group of Japan’s first caddies.  Fukui Masaharu, the first professional Japanese golfer, stands on the far left.[16]

 

The growth of golf continued at a rapid pace.  Only three years later in 1906, Yokohama saw the formation of its own golf club.  Interestingly enough, this par 39 golf course was built inside the confines of a horseracing track.  It was aptly named Nippon Race Club & Golfing Association (ニッポン・レース・クラブ・ゴルフィング・

アソシエーション). 

 Soon, the interest in golf grew to a nationwide level.  In 1907, many Japanese would observe the first national amateur championship in Japan, even though there were no Japanese participants.[17]  Five years later in 1912, the first Japanese public course was built in Nagasaki called Unzen (雲仙ゴルフ場).  The construction of this course made golf more accessible to a larger section of the Japanese populace because it only cost about 20 sen (1000-2000 yen today, less than $10 U.S. dollars) to play, which included a caddy.  By 1914, the formation of the Tokyo Golf Club (東京ゴルフ倶楽部) signified the first club created solely by Japanese people.  The year 1916 marked the first time a Japanese person competed in a tournament.  The competitor was named Ishiki Toraji (一色虎児) in which he placed thirteenth out of fourteen competitors.[18]  However, by 1918, at the Komazawa course (駒沢コース) in Tokyo, Inoue Shin (井上信) became the first Japanese winner of an amateur golf tournament.

                  

Figure 4.          Inoue Shin.[19]                Figure 5.    The Komazawa course in Tokyo.[20]                                                                                   

 The victory of Inoue Shin would spur on golf’s popularity and perhaps even inspire the future Emperor of Japan to have a golfing facility built on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.  In 1922, the future Emperor ShØwa and the Prince of Wales played together on the same course that Inoue Shin earned Japan’s first golfing victory.  By 1924, the Japan Golf Association (Nihon Gorufu KyØkai 日本ゴルフ協会) was founded.  The year of 1926 marked Japan’s first professional tournament in which native Miyamoto Tomekichi (宮本留吉) won the championship.  During this decade, the popularity of golf was so high that it rivaled baseball as the premier sport in Japan.[21]

Soon, many Japanese golfers began to play and compete abroad.  Miyamoto Tomekichi traveled to America to play with the legendary golfer Bobby Jones at the famous Pinehurst Golf Course in North Carolina.  In a bet, Miyamoto won five dollars from Jones and the great American amateur signed the bill as a memento of the event.  The Akaboshi brothers, ShirØ (赤星四郎) and RokurØ (赤星六郎), studied in America and sought to play on American courses.  ShirØ went to Pennsylvania to study and honed his golf skills.  It paid off when he won the second amateur tournament in Japan.  Surprisingly, his brother, RokurØ, became the captain of the golf team at Princeton University.  In 1924, he went on to win the spring collegiate tournament at Pinehurst.  Sports Illustrated wrote about this rising star and commented about his unorthodox swing:  when he finished his golf swing, his right knee touched the ground.  In line with all his successes, RokurØ, as an amateur, beat out five professionals and twelve other amateurs to go on to win the first Japan Open in 1927.[22]  Following suit, Konoe Fumitaka (近衛文隆), whose father would later become the Prime Minister of Japan, also became the golf team captain at Princeton.

        

Figure 6.  Akaboshi ShirØ, Akaboshi RokurØ, and Konoe Fumitaka.[23]

In 1930, early American golfing greats like Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen came to play exhibition matches in Japan.[24]  By 1937, Japan had a strong showing of seventy courses.  As it seemed like golf could only get more popular in this country, the beginning of World War II quelled the tides of its growth.  Preparing for war, the Japanese government declared golf an enemy sport.  As a result many courses were converted into military bases or used for agricultural purposes.  Golf nearly disappeared from the Japanese landscape during this period.[25]

 

The Golf Restoration 

After the war in the 1950’s, golf’s popularity resurged in Japan.  When American forces withdrew from their occupation in 1952, only eighteen golf courses survived the war.  Nevertheless, the Japanese were ready to embrace the game once again.[26]  In 1957, the Japanese Golf Association was re-established.  But perhaps more importantly during that year, Nakamura Torakichi (中村寅吉) and Ono KØichi (小野光一) played in the World (Fifth Canada) Cup – and won.  This single event skyrocketed golf’s popularity as many hailed golf as Japan’s new national sport.[27]  A United States Golf Association (USGA) journal article published in 1957 encapsulated this new wave of excitement:

The intervening decade has been one of tremendous golf revival.  Helped in several instances by the United States occupational forces, Japan now boasts 59 private clubs and 16 public courses for its upwards of 300,000 enthusiasts.  If golfers in this country feel that they have a course shortage problem, their worries are slight in comparison.  Nearly every club in Japan has a membership of over 1,000, and in some instances as many as 2,000.  Golfers who cannot join a club are flocking as guest members, and most clubs have reluctantly had to bar visitors at week-ends.[28]

 

In the same year, Shun Noruma, Vice-President of the Japan Golf Association and President of the Tokyo Golf Club, envisioned that Japan would be “one of the great golfing nations of the future.”[29]  How true his prediction would be!  This sport was still considerably exclusive during this time and played mostly by politicians and the rich.  By the 1960’s, Japanese businessmen began to play because “golf became a prerequisite for managerial success in the corporate world.”[30]

                                       

           Figure 7.            Ono KØichi                        Nakamura Torakichi[31]

As the Japanese government shifted its focus from the militaristic world to the business and professional arenas, this caused extraordinary economic growth after the post-war years in Japan.  The result was that many more people could afford to take up golf.  In line with a growing sense of national self-confidence, another “golf boom” – in which the number of courses rose to 424 between 1960 and 1964 – coincided with Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato’s drive to double national income.  This was followed in 1972 by Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s decision to invest heavily in major public works schemes such as highway construction.  With more roads, this allowed access to parts of the country where these new golf courses would be built.  The number of courses soon topped 1,000.[32] 

The biggest golf boom began under Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985, after he instigated a massive construction program using private-sector capital to stimulate the economy.  A few years later, the Resort Law (rizØto-hØ, full name: sØgØ hØyØ chiiki seibihØ) provided tax breaks for projects in economically weak regions.  This triggered national and local government support for the construction of golf courses, hotels, tennis courts, ski resorts, marinas, and other leisure facilities.  Moreover, permission was granted to turn agricultural land and forest areas into golf courses.[33]  Linhart and Frühstück explain the government’s reason to promote leisure in Japan:  “The government promoted the extension of the leisure infrastructure as well as the beneficial use of free time to prove that Japan was on its way to becoming a ‘superpower in the quality of life’ (seikatsu taikoku) and thus counterbalance the negative image of the Japanese as ‘workaholics.’”[34]  As a result, the country’s overall “leisure market” almost doubled in ten years between 1982 and 1993, growing from 39.7 trillion yen to 76.9 trillion.[35]  It seems that whenever Japan has had money to invest, golf courses have almost always been a part of the investment. 

During the height of Japan’s bubble economy in the late 1980’s, golf was a means of showing off one’s wealth.  Guttman and Thompson describe the attitude that went along with this new profundity of affluence:  “Ironically, the scarcity of useable land in Japan makes golf courses especially attractive to those who can afford to play the game because ‘the sheer physical size of the space this sport occupies may be seen as a measure of the social space occupied by its players.’”[36]  At this time, many Japanese paid around $3 million to be member of the socially exclusive Konganei Country Club near Tokyo, and then paying up to $300 for a single round.[37]  Soon, golf club memberships were traded like stocks in the newspapers.[38]  Many Japanese rushed to buy “hole-in-one insurance” because, in case they ever happened to get so lucky, they were expected to celebrate by throwing a lavish party costing sometimes more than U.S.$15,000 dollars.[39]  Perhaps the love affair between golf and Japanese money culminated in 1990 when businessman Minoru Isutani purchased the world-renown Pebble Beach golf club in California for $840 million dollars.[40]  

By the early 1990’s, golf had moved to the center of Japanese sports.  In 1990, Japan had 1,718 golf courses, some 300 more were under construction, and 955 were planned.  Today, corporate executives and even the ordinary sarar¥man, (“salary man,” i.e. white collar employee) have become “golf crazy.”  Guttman and Thompson comment “that a modicum of ability with driver and putter is essential for advancement in the corporate hierarchy.”  Even though the corporate executive and the sarar¥man whom he employs are the predominant Japanese golfers, women too have taken to “hitting the links.”  It is reported that 15 percent of Japan’s golfers are female.  This would mean that some 1.8 million women participate in this expensive and prestigious sport.[41] 

The high demand for golf in Japan has caused a myriad of environmental concerns as courses use large quantities of water to keep the grounds green, spread many pesticides and herbicides to protect the courses from biological nuisances, and cut down many trees.[42]  But this has not stopped the Japanese “yen” for golf, as they have made many foreign investments in courses aboard in South Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia as well as Hawaii, Scotland, and Australia.[43]  Despite the bursting of the bubble economy and an economic recession in recent years, Japan still maintains the second largest golf market in the world.[44]  In sum, it has been difficult to accommodate more than 13 million of Japan’s players who are very passionate about the game.

 

Japanese Professional Golfers

Figure 8.  A professional swings out of the bunker in a tournament at Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba.  Mount Fuji is in the background.[45]

 

The 1980’s marked a period of great prosperity for Japan but the abundance of money was not the only reason that incited people to play golf.  The popularity of golf in Japan owes itself as much to Japanese professionals that compete on the world level as to any other factor.  In 1983, Aoki Isao (1942~) won the Hawaiian Open.  This event marked the first Japanese player to win on the PGA (Professional Golf Association) tour.  Moreover, such a victory contributed greatly to Japanese pride.  Turning professional at the age of 22, Aoki went on to win over 50 tournaments in Japan.  In addition to the Hawaiian Open, he also won the European Open and Pacific Open.  Aoki actively participated on the U.S. Senior Tour for several years.  But at the age of 57, he announced a return to the Japanese Tour in 2000.

Ozaki Masashi (1947~), better known as “Jumbo” Ozaki, is one of the most accomplished players in Japanese golf, having won over 90 tournaments and frequently topping the money rankings.  But his charisma may have done more for Japanese golfers as he is usually seen playing golf in “style”:  laid-back and chain-smoking.  The eldest of three golfing brothers, Ozaki has tried to compete abroad many times.  However, he never achieved much success, winning only a couple of minor tournaments outside of Japan.

Japanese women golfers have been quite accomplished on the world stage. Okamoto Ayako (1951~) is the most successful Japanese woman golfer.  In 1979, when she won the Japan Ladies’ Professional Golf Championship with a three-round score of 17-under par, this amazing total earned her a place in The Guinness Book of Records.  At the age of 30, she joined the U.S. LPGA tour where she won 17 tournaments between 1981 and 1992.  In 1987, she became the LPGA’s 15th millionaire and won the Player of the Year Award.  Without a doubt, she has influenced many female golfers in Japan.[46]

More recently, Katayama Shingo (1973~) has become a very successful Japanese golfer in the PGA tour.  In 2001, he finished fourth in the PGA Championship, one of the four major championships of the men’s golf.[47]  Another upcoming female golfer is Fukushima Ayako (1973~).  As a pro in Japan, she won 13 tournaments, including 2 majors, and twice topped the JLPGA money rankings.  In 1999, she joined the LPGA and won a tournament in her first season.[48]  However, the most notable current player is Maruyama Shigeki.  Otherwise known as “Smiley,” Maruyama has become very popular in Japan and abroad for his fun-loving personality.  In addition, he has won eight prestigious amateur titles, and since turning professional in 1992, he has captured nine victories in his native country, including three significant titles in 1997 – the Japan Open, Japan Match Play, and the Japan Series.  In 1998, he recorded a 5-0 victory in match play in the President’s Cup.  This earned him the Most Valuable Player award for leading the International Team to their first President’s Cup win.  When he finally got his PGA tour card in 2000, he shared second place with Tiger Woods at the Buick Invitational and thus becoming the first Japanese professional to earn $1 million in a season on the PGA tour.[49]      

                    

Figure 9. “Jumbo” Ozaki           Okamoto Ayako[50]           Maruyama Shigeki[51]

These professionals have done a lot for the average golfer in Japan.  They have not only contributed to the pride of Japanese golfers, but they have inspired them to subscribe to the golf magazines, read golf comics, or manga, emulate their fashion, and buy expensive golf equipment.  In essence, they have drawn the average Japanese worker into the game and made them fully engrossed in it, thus firmly establishing golf as a major sport in Japan.  Suddenly, the unlikely pairing of golf in Japan has become a match made in heaven.      

With such a rocky start, it’s a wonder how golf survived and flourished in Japan.  It became more than a short-lived foreign fad that came and went during the first part of the 20th century.  So, what did the Japanese find so appealing that they kept the game alive from its introduction to the present time?   A deeper examination into the Japanese social groundwork might provide some insight.  My next section will discuss how the distinct aspects of golf, such as the rules, decorum, etiquette, and protocol, have resonated with the Japanese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Tee Ceremony:  Protocols in Golf and Japanese Society

 

 

 

 

 

Golf is in the interest of good health and good manners.  It promotes self-interest and affords a chance to play the man and act the gentleman.

 

- William Howard Taft, the first U.S. President to play    serious golf[52]