Golf In Japan

Nish: 0:00

Every story has an ending. Does our quest to play the top 100 courses in 10 years have a good ending? I’m Nish and I’m here to guide you through this golfing journey. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast Bonus episode Golf in Japan. Now.

Nish: 0:18

I’ve always been fascinated by golfing culture in other countries and I’ve already covered a little bit of the states. I’ve already covered in a fantastic episode with a friend of mine, harbs from harb seven golf. We covered dubai and it was really interesting to understand how golf works in in dubai. But the one place that’s felt the most otherworldly has, for me, been Japan. I’ve been fascinated by Japanese culture for many, many years, having studied a couple of years of Japanese at university out through Instagram to a company called Golf in Japan who run tours for foreigners basically to come into Japan, play golf there and experience the golfing culture, and they were absolutely brilliant. They’ve got a podcast themselves, they’ve got a YouTube channel themselves and we’ll pop all the links in our descriptions. Go check them out. They’re absolutely brilliant.

Nish: 1:32

Just seem like really, really nice guys, and I’m pleased to say that we’ve got somebody from Golf in Japan with us today who’s going to explain to us what golf is like and is everything that I’m seeing on Instagram. Is that the reality? Is that how it all works? Because it looks so formal. It looks like such a nice long day out playing golf. I don’t know how I would get it to slide past the family, but if that’s the way it’s done, that’s the way it’s done, so I’m interested to find out. So this is Kieran from Golf in Japan. Hello, kieran.

Kieron: 2:07

Hello Nish. How are you? Is it Nish or?

Nish: 2:09

Nish, it’s Nish.

Kieron: 2:12

Nish.

Nish: 2:13

Like fish, but a bit fatter.

Kieron: 2:18

Nice to meet you anyway.

Nish: 2:19

Very nice to meet you, kieran. So tell me, you guys are from a website, a business, you’ve got a podcast and you’ve got a YouTube channel. It’s called Golf in Japan.

Kieron: 2:30

Yeah, so tell me a little bit about yourselves. And how did you start. What’s the business about? And I was working in media here and I suppose one thing led to another. I’ll cut short a decade of just, you know, doing random stuff in Tokyo, but set up a magazine, a print magazine, in around 2010. And that was a bilingual golf magazine, so it was called Air.

Kieron: 3:01

Golf Print was still a thing back then, and then we that evolved into more or less online, and golf tourism at that time wasn’t really happening, and I suppose the misconception was that it was expensive, it was a member only courses, all of that kind of thing, all of that kind of thing. But what had happened was the bubble in the Japanese economy had burst in the 90s, the late 90s, and then they had no choice but to let any golfer play the golf course, not just members. And so I started off thinking, okay, well, japan is such a great place to play golf I could be wrong on this, but I think there’s more golf courses in Japan than Ireland, england, scotland, wales and France combined. So we’ve got 2,300.

Nish: 3:55

Oh, I did not expect you to say that.

Kieron: 3:58

So there’s a fair few and you know you could spend your lifetime just trying to play the courses you know in and around Tokyo. So, yeah, just an incredible place to play golf. And you know, I was working in media and I decided in 2019, when I golf in Japan was started by someone else and then he decided to retire and move back to Europe and I took it over and there was all inquiries coming in on it saying you know, I I want to play golf and it just happened that the Rugby World Cup was coming up and there was loads of guys coming over. You know I’m here for three matches, but there’s three days in between the matches I want to play golf. So I started setting up golf for them and the website had all the golf courses in Japan and and you know, so through that I was getting the inquiries.

Kieron: 4:46

So then 2019 decided to quit my job. I was working for a media company here called Fuji Sankei, which is one of the biggest um media companies in probably in the world, certainly in Asia, and um set up my own company. And then, 2020, um, that didn’t go so well. Inbound tourism to japan wasn’t so good. Yeah, um, and suppose um, one of my golf buddies, damon uh, you’ve probably seen on their podcast he um kind of said like look, let’s get it back going up and he, he decided to partner in the business and so, yeah, we’ve been doing it since I guess 2020, the end of 2022, and it’s gone from strength to strength. Now we have a couple of staff, um, we do a lot of stuff, but I suppose the inbound bookings is is the main. So we’re helping we introduce the golf courses and japanese golf culture to foreigners and they they come over and they book rounds through us and we we have a rental club business with tightlist and we work with a couple of other golf brands and here mostly, you know, groups of golf courses to promote them and get foreigners playing hasn’t been so much from the uk, I would say, say majority now is Australians, americans, singaporeans, south Korean.

Kieron: 6:11

I think it’s a bit far for people in Europe, although it’s starting to get a little bit more popular. Japan right now is so cheap to come the yen is unbelievably weak. It’s very’s so cheap to come. The yen is unbelievably weak, so it’s very, very cheap to come here and to play golf and actually recently what we’re seeing is everyone’s coming here and getting fit for, you know, mizuno’s or Titleist whatever, and getting the tax free, and so that’s another big part of our business. There we’re arranging fittings, so it’s kind of on sale right now. Hopefully it lasts, you know, but we’ll see what happens with the inflation rates and so on, but so far it’s looking really good. So, year on year up about 400%.

Nish: 6:58

Wow.

Kieron: 6:59

Yeah, so it’s been really good. And then we started doing the podcast. I used to do podcasts years ago for my old company and it’s just a yeah, as you know yourself just a bit of fun and it adds to it and I think it legitimizes our business a bit, because, you know, when you’re just emailing someone’s through some dodgy website that you found and you and then, uh, they’re like, am I really going to pay a deposit to these guys? Um, yeah, then they kind of see our faces and they’re dealing with us, they’re dealing with me or they’re dealing with Damon or Ryan or Hiroko or Marco or one of our team, so they can kind of see who we are. So that’s been good for that. Let people know we’re human.

Nish: 7:38

Absolutely. I think that makes a big difference, doesn’t it? I mean, I think it’s interesting you’re saying about, uh, less european uptake in in your, in your service, and I suppose I always do my sort of prep for the podcast by sending out some questions I’ve sent out. You probably read them and gone. Does this guy know nothing about golf in japan? I suppose there is a bit of it. No, pretty smart, honestly.

Nish: 8:03

Yeah, a few people about the, the podcast, and they were like about this episode particularly, and I’m really excited about it because it feels like it feels like an out there world like I’ve seen so much on instagram. I mean, obviously follow you guys and you know that’s why I reached out. But you know, I looked at a lot of videos and things on instagram and it’s like, wow, what a different way to approach your round of golf. I’m sort of like playing for four hours and it’s bookended by half an hour on each side, which is getting there getting a little bit warm. I’ll finish, I might have a fresh orange and lemonade and then I’m off.

Kieron: 8:39

Yeah, well, I shouldn’t say it depends where you’re living or where you’re coming from, where you’re playing golf in Japan. But I’ll give you an idea of the differences between, say, playing over there and playing here if you live in Tokyo. Right, people always say I want to play golf in Tokyo. There’s about five or six full 18-hole golf courses in Tokyo and they’re all super, super private, apart from one that’s very hard to get onto. And so when you talk about golf in Tokyo, you actually talk about golf in the neighboring counties or prefectures, right? So you’ve got Chiba, which is on the coast, you’ve got Tochigi or Ibaraki, which is up north, or Gunma, a little bit more to the left. Then you’ve got Kanagawa and Shizuoka, where Fuji is on that side. So they all, you know you can play in any one of them, and I suppose most golfers would think, okay, upwards of, say, two hours. You know, traveling like by car from their house to the golf course is acceptable. Of course you want to play within an hour, say, but you have to allow for traffic. There could be an accident on the expressway, something like that. The most golf courses here will pick you up by train. So if you, if you go to the local train station. They run a shuttle. Nearly all golf courses do that, so trains here are really good. But wow, and we do have this thing called a tacky bin where you can uh ship your clubs, and so it costs about 3 000 yen, uh say about 20 quid, and they’ll. They’ll be there in two days waiting for you and the golf course is all set up for that. So you just come and you know they’re around the back beside the caddy master’s office waiting for you, um, so you don’t have to lug them on the train anyway.

Kieron: 10:22

So say you drive, so you you go out. Say you allow an hour and a half two hours for driving and you want to get there a little bit early, half an hour to warm up, so you might start. Maybe you leave the house at six for a 9 am tea time. Hopefully you arrive there eight or before. You might have something to eat, you might hit a few balls, then you wait for your tea time. There’s a whole most golf course live, a massive big clubhouse. So you come in, you check in, you’ve got a locker, you go and you drop off your stuff at your locker. It’s a very posh golf course. You won’t have to wear a blazer or but if it’s in the summer and it’s really hot, you can just come ready to play, kind of thing um, no jeans, that kind of stuff just like you wear a golf shirt or whatever. Then you go out and usually nowadays mostly self-play, which means no caddy, so you’ll have a golf.

Kieron: 11:14

Everyone plays with golf carts here because usually you’re playing. It’s a very mountainous country, a lot of up and downs between the intervals. Some you can walk the course, but not many. But they do have remote controls on the golf carts which you’ve probably seen everyone posted about. So the golf cart has a kind of a magnet on the bumper and it follows this track around and then so you can get off, walk the course if you want and you have a clicker like a remote control for the golf cart. It stops wherever you want on the cart path.

Kieron: 11:43

Yeah, it’s supposed to be two and a half hours for nine holes. That would be a kind of a decent pace. But if you’re playing on a saturday or if the weather’s really nice cherry blossoms are out, whatever it is could take a little bit longer because a lot of old people play golf here. So say, let’s say two and a half hours, three, and then you go in and you have your lunch, and that’s always an hour. Then you go in and you have your lunch, and that’s always an hour. So the golf courses here are set up for that it’s this lunch thing that’s piqued my interest.

Nish: 12:10

You probably appreciate it, I’m a full-seated gentleman so anything food-related is good for me. Yeah, you’re not stopping for sausage roll.

Kieron: 12:22

No, there’s not. Now there’s one or two courses koshigaya, there’s one that’s like an american course and it’s through play, and there’s a little caravan set up on the turn and you can buy a hot dog and a beer. That’s only one place in japan out of the 2300. The rest is you. You go in, you have you see, you’ll go in, you’ll. Um, obviously you’ll go to the restaurant, which is like a full big restaurant, usually overlooking the course. It’s really beautiful, and then everybody will usually smash a beer, a nice draft beer, and have something like soba or like some noodles, or actually they might have about most between 10 and 20 different food items, like a kind of a set. So you might get, say, noodles, and then say like a pork cutlet. Then you’d have. That would be a very tasty stuff, very good. Um, then you’ll. You’ll probably drink too much.

Kieron: 13:13

You go back on the out, on the course, play another two and a half hours, maybe three hours. You come back in and you go into the locker room and then usually you bring a change and what you’ll do is they’ll have an onsen or a hot bath at least. So you go in, you get showered, washed, you’ll get into your, your onsen, you’ll relax and you get changed again. Locker room, you go out, you pay and then off you go home and hopefully the traffic hasn’t you know. If you get out before three o’clock you’re doing well. So yeah, it wouldn’t be surprised if you get back home seven or eight o’clock now.

Nish: 13:46

I remember I left at six, so that was a 13 hour day playing golf, wow so it’s a long day sorry, that was a long explanation to, to be honest, that that was interesting to, because you’ve got this whole instagram versus reality thing going on, haven’t you? And you like? You know you can see very selected portions of golf and obviously somebody could show you that experience in the UK very easily, but it’s just not the norm. Most people do not experience and play golf that way. They’ll do what I do, you know, and you’re phoning your mates at five minutes to tea time like he’s still coming. You know that kind of thing. Um, I love that.

Nish: 14:25

I mean, uh, for a bit of background for everyone, I did two years of studying, uh, japanese at university as part of my degree and the whole formality of japanese culture. Uh, because you don’t just learn about the language. I really cannot speak any language, I’ve drunk it all away but, um, the the formality of japanese culture, I love that. You know, I love that whole kind of you’re not just gonna finish and just get changed. Oh, no, no, no, you’re gonna have a nice hot bath. You know you’re gonna. If you’re gonna get changed, you’re gonna do it properly. If you’re gonna turn up, your clubs are gonna be here ready for you. That’s all part of the experience I mean. Is that? Is that? Obviously that’s uh. You know you’ve got 2,300, 400 golf courses um percentage wise, is that quite a common uh experience, or is that?

Kieron: 15:20

right, okay, that’s the common experience. You don’t have to have a bath like some guy, like if you, if you teed off late or it’s running late and you want to get back, you know you’ll, you’ll, sometimes you’ll just, you know you’ll grab your stuff out of your locker. You’re paying off, you go, jump in the car and you go um. But for our clients, they want to have the full experience. So, um, that’s what they’ll do, they’ll enjoy it, they’ll just, they’ll have the lunch and then they’ll go and have the bath afterwards and then we’ll have a few beers on the shinkansen, on the way back as well, and have the um, their eki ben, their, their station bento box, which is eki ben, and you have that, the train, with a few beers coming back, and your clubs are being shipped.

Nish: 15:59

So you don’t, you know, drag them yeah, so I mean you know how, how uncouth you got to take your own clubs with you. I always try and take my own clubs.

Kieron: 16:09

so but yeah, it’s amazing and I love. We have this new service where we call it Companion Golf, which probably sounds a bit ropey, but a lot of people are just too nervous to take a train or they don’t want the expense of taking a taxi, which is quite expensive. So we’ll bring them, we’ll pick them up at the hotel. We’ll bring the tight list rentals that we have, so we’ve brand new GT, everything Scotty Cameron’s, the bra. Every time a club comes up, we replace every club that we have, and so we’ll bring them out to. You know, we’ll bring them with. Mount Fuji is probably one of the most popular, and they’re just. You know, you’re playing golf and it’s just this massive volcano covered in snow in front of it. Oh, a bit of an earthquake Just as I’m talking to you. Just then. Just a little one, yeah, just a little shudder.

Nish: 17:01

Are you kidding?

Kieron: 17:02

No, it’s okay, it’s gone now. It was a big one.

Kieron: 17:06

There’s an election that the government put out. So my phone would be gone if there was a big one. But you get, wow, you know you get the. That’s why we have onsen here. You know that’s the good part, but the bad part is, like you’re on, like I think there’s. So you know, the air is floating on plates, right, and there’s three of them meeting in Japan. Pretty much it’s like a peace sign, right, so it’s like that. And then it’s like that, and right where they intersect is Menfuji. Yeah, it’s supposed to erupt soon and when it erupts it just completely destroys, you know, a good swath, a couple of hundred kilometers all around it. So a lot of people live there, so we’re not looking forward to that one.

Kieron: 17:49

Is that something that’s due? Is it? Yeah, so they say. I think the last time it erupted was the 18-something. There are volcanoes that do erupt all the time, but the big earthquakes are the scariest man. I was here for the one in 2011, and that was nuts. All the golf courses shut down. Yeah, I was actually on a golf course when that happened and it was nuts.

Nish: 18:13

Yeah, but that was a bit hairy, wasn’t it? Yeah, I mean that’s yeah sorry, that’s an understatement hairy, we should add behind you, you’ve got the Tokyo Skyline.

Kieron: 18:25

Yeah, so this is so we’re in. We’re right in a place called Atagal.

Nish: 18:30

I really want to get there now.

Kieron: 18:32

You should come. It’s fun. No, it’s probably one of the best places to play golf in the world, I mean.

Nish: 18:41

Tokyo is like one of the most densely populated cities in the world and you mentioned before. There are five clubs, I think, and four of them are really exclusive. The other one is difficult to get onto. How does somebody in Tokyo get their golf fix?

Kieron: 18:58

Well, there’s a lot of driving ranges you can hit a few balls, the simulators, there’s golf bars and that kind of thing, but really I would say most people will travel for golf pretty much Saturdays and Sundays. Everyone gets out of Tokyo and does it Midweek. If you can, of course, that’s the best time, but in turn you’ve got to be a dedicated golfer to really golf here. You know back home I’m from Dublin, in case you haven’t guessed that you could literally throw your clubs in the boot and be at the golf course in 10 minutes and play a casual round, just meet up with anyone here. They don’t allow single players, so minimum two people.

Kieron: 19:44

So that’s been the challenge, because a lot of people come here in business and say, oh, I’d love to play a game of golf, and that’s why we started bringing people out or teaming them up together and we’ll book. We’ll book a foursome, um, but yeah. But the good thing is transportation is really good here, so you can take a train almost anywhere. It’s just an amazing amount of trains and and you can get to pretty much any golf course, we’d say in the Tokyo region, in about an hour and a half. So you just take a train, okay, fantastic.

Kieron: 20:16

And they’ll pick you up. All golf courses will pick you up from the station. There might be a shuttle bus, like we’re there, but they’re going backwards and forwards from the station all morning.

Nish: 20:26

Wow, yeah, I mean, I think I’d much rather travel by train. Means you can have a beer afterwards, isn’t it?

Kieron: 20:33

yeah. So it’s only, it’s always one unlucky sod who who doesn’t uh, he doesn’t get to partake. But saying that, like in japan, yeah, it’s pretty much zero tolerance for drinking here and I don’t do it. But you’ll see guys have a beer in the morning or a beer at lunch. I think in Japan you don’t realize how much they drink. You see, all the old boys come in in the morning and they’ll be getting their, maybe their chew higher, their shochu, their whiskey. They’ll have a few in the clubhouse before they head off. The cool thing on the golf course is in the front line, in the back line, on every golf course there’s a, there’s a tea house and they’ll and usually they’ll they’ll sell um drinks. So some of the popular drinks is one called a dell cup, which is like a cinnamon whiskey. Come and you just rip the top off and it’s like a perfect shot glass. Shot glass of cinnamon whiskey, that’s about 18. And if it’s cold, because you get the four seasons here, so if it’s cold, that’s the drink of choice over here.

Nish: 21:31

That’s sick. I love that. So does the the dearth of uh golf courses and I’m sorry golf courses, that’s not right, because there’s there’s thousands, but um the difficulty in getting out to play. Do you think that impacts the uptake of golf in japan?

Kieron: 21:49

good question I would say no. So there’s been. If I could give you a kind of a historical rundown of golf in japan, I, it came over probably around 1910, 1915 or just after the first world war, 1917, 18, and the first few golf courses were built by. You know, you have addison allison, sorry. Uh, scottish man came over and he was kind of he had done tokyo golf club and kawana, which are both, I believe, top 100 in in the world, and it was kind of slow to take up. But then it was kind of a very elitist thing. You know, most people were just especially. And then after the war, you know, with the war people were too busy rebuilding. But then japan in the say the 60s, really really found its own in terms of um. You know it was a leader in technology industry. Everyone was working hard, a lot of money in the in the country and people needed a way to spend it. And then I would say within the space of 30 years there was probably over 1,500 golf courses constructed.

Kieron: 22:53

Really, the 70s, 80s and 90s is when the Japanese bubble, the economy was really really good. They were the biggest economy in the world next to the US. They were buying all the assets in America. They wanted to have a rich lifestyle, and so everybody was becoming members of all these golf courses. Sometimes you had five, six, seven memberships. I’d say the average. If I was in the 80s and the 90s, I’d say the average was about 30 to 50 million yen, could be more, which is probably 40 or 50 grand.

Kieron: 23:22

And then, end of the 90s, bubble burst. So all these private clubs, uh, immediately all their members wanted to cash out, get the memberships back. Government had to step in because the amount of tax that they were earning was just unbelievable. They, they said to the, they bailed the golf course out. They said you don’t have to pay back the membership. So that saved the golf industry at that time. And so at that a lot of people loved it. I’d say at that time there’s probably close to eight or nine million golfers in japan. And so the golf courses survived.

Kieron: 23:50

But then, you know, people didn’t have as much money. You know, the economy was bad, that kind of thing. So then what happened was all of these private they’re not even though they had members, they were still private clubs, right. So they weren’t owned by the members. They’re owned by private companies. You were just paying to be allowed to play there. You’d still have to pay every time you played as well, but it’d be less than a visitor. Um, so then what they did was they opened up golf courses to all and to make up the numbers, and so you don’t have to be a member anymore to play these golf courses. Some you do. Some are still very close to toky, so they’re still holding on to that very private, like Kasumigaseki, where the Olympics were. I think they’ve gone back to not let women play on the weekends, because they had to let them during the Olympics, but then they went back, I think. So they’re very old school, but if you drive out an error, no way you can play any golf course.

Kieron: 24:42

And so there was a couple of online tea time companies got established, the biggest being Rakuten, where people could earn points for their credit cards and all sorts of stuff playing golf and people would review, and they had a whole booking platform, and this is way, way, way before anyone else in the world was doing online booking platforms. The only way you could get a tea time, usually in Ireland, say, was to call up or fax. Yeah, ring the pro. So they were well ahead of it there. So then that happened and that kind of revitalized the golf industry a bit.

Kieron: 25:12

Everyone started playing, new people were coming to the game and and then I think it was dwindling and other young people weren’t really into it because there was one thing called set die golf, where you had to go play with your, with your boss or your clients. You’d always let them win, and it was because Japanese are very not that they’re two-faced, but they’re very, uh, reserved around someone who’s who’s senior in age or senior in position, and if you really want to get to know someone play 18 holes right, because you’ll see them go through the whole spectrum of emotions, and so that was the way you would see if your business partner, you know how they react on the pressure or you know, are they a nice guy, and so on and so forth. So there was this thing called set like golf, and that kind of um disappeared. And then, uh, covid happened and then, uh, you, you, there was nothing you could do.

Kieron: 25:56

Lockdown over here was massively strict, like you couldn’t do anything, and so all the young people started playing golf. So then there was this mad resurgence in golf 2021 22. They said about uh, 800 000 young people came to the sport during covid. Maybe the same in in in other places as well and then it was more cool.

Kieron: 26:16

It was the, it was the hoodies, the malvern crew, bringing a little bit more of a fresh way of playing golf. You know, depending what course you’re playing in, you get young people especially. Actually ladies really came to to play golf because they love the fashion and they love the instagram. So girls in their late teens, in the 20s, like the female professional game is way bigger than the males here. Is it interesting?

Nish: 26:40

much bigger.

Kieron: 26:41

Yeah, so if I go back to the bubble, so the person here for professional tournaments were bigger than America at the time because there was loads of money and loads of sponsors. Tiger was killing it over here.

Nish: 26:55

Can you hear the?

Kieron: 26:56

ambulance going by.

Nish: 26:58

Do you know what he scared me with the whole? I’ll get an alert on my phone before I thought that’s what was happening there.

Kieron: 27:05

No, you’ll know that one that’s a scary one.

Nish: 27:08

Are there any? Obviously you said there’s some. The uptake in golf with younger people has really come to the fore. Headline grabber, and apologies, this has a male slant. I know the female game is bigger in Japan, obviously we know about Hideki. So are there any really good up-and-coming young Japanese golfers that we should? All think about placing a little bet on.

Kieron: 27:35

Ikeda. So let me think We’ve always been talking about it on the golf podcast. So we have Projo, who’s an Australian Pian uh, pj professional, here. He always does the. He’ll always tell you. He always follows the ladies golf, everything here and um. There’s a girl called takeda. She’s, she’s not a, she was a rookie last year and this year she won, I believe, 10 times really hard fields like um, and you know everyone was talking about what um.

Kieron: 28:04

Look, if you put that in the us perspective, that, like you know, nelly corridor won, I think, nine times or something like she won 10 times and she won the. There’s one event that’s co-sanctioned by the lpga and she won that as well. So now she’s got a card for the lpga. So her name is, uh, rio takeda, so rio, like, same as rio shikawa. It’s male or female or yo, and so that’s one to watch. She’s, she’s an absolute. She’s just just a tiny little baby face assassin. Great game, unbelievable game. This.

Kieron: 28:35

There’s a lot of pro, professional golfers here. I mean um hit satsune. So there’s a couple of players who are on the european tour now and so that’s their way to get into the pga tour. If you’re male especially, you can’t just get on. But the women can get on. But the male tour is such it’s it’s regarded quite low in terms of world ranking points. So you gotta, you gotta do top three here. Then you get onto the European tour. I think if you win two or more times over there, or maybe get in the top 30 or top 20, you can get onto the PGA tour why do you think that is?

Nish: 29:05

because, um, I’ll tell you my sorts of perception, for just from from our discussion really, and that’s that’s all it’s based on. You know, we’ve got numerous golf courses. They’re they could be in testing terrain because it is a hilly country. There’s going to be testing weather conditions, so you know you’ve got to be a good all-around golfer to play golf in Japan. Why are they not ranking Japanese golfers as highly in ranking points? Is it just a prestige? They don’t travel as well.

Kieron: 29:36

Hideki Matsuyama is an exception. I don’t want to talk crap about Hideki because I’ve met him and he’s a lovely chap. He actually speaks a bit of English. He’s really nice. He’s not affected by anything around him, like he just does not give a fig about what’s going on and he will focus and grind and practice like nobody else, whereas anybody else who gets a little bit of fame, a little bit of notoriety, they tend to get affected by that. They can’t practice as well. And certainly the pressure. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Hideki Matsuyama play in a tournament.

Kieron: 30:12

He has his own camera crew behind him. So the Japanese media will send maybe two camera crews behind him so they don’t miss a shot. Because the Japanese public would not allow, because you know the way they’ll flip around to another golf course and you’ll miss it. You’ll miss a shot. They not allow because you know the way they’ll flip around to another golf course and you’ll miss it. You’ll miss a shot. Yeah, they don’t care about anybody else and the japanese coverage, which is really frustrating for me to watch it, but they will like when it goes to commercial or whatever, they have their own camera crew doing hideki matsuyama and the pressure that must come with that. So when, when they have a really um, got your own camera crews following you around.

Kieron: 30:44

The Japanese love sport, they love success. They get a lot of gold medals in the Olympics. They invest a lot into their youth programs, but it somehow doesn’t translate into overseas. They don’t generally speak good English. They don’t generally like other foods other than Japanese, because the food is so good here and so poor when you go overseas, comparatively, that they tend to, you know, because it’s all about diet and feeling comfortable.

Kieron: 31:10

But he’s just, he’s an exception, I feel, and there’s been great players who’ve gone over and not really a couple that have gone. I suppose was Stapley Aoki. He was the first to win PGA Tour, won with that amazing shot in. He holds one from the rough to win Ayumi Izato. She was world number one at one stage. So before, with the exception of those Jumbo’s, ozeki was prolific. I think he won 80 times in Japan, but never overseas and he was just dominating everything here Just couldn’t translate Going out and playing different grass. They play Korai here with bent greens and all you know all the different types of grass. They didn’t like it, so it’s hard to adapt your game. Yeah, I think this girl, takeda, she could be the one to watch. I think Ikeda is the guy I mentioned.

Kieron: 31:59

He’s in Europe now. He won the money list in the men’s tour here in his rookie year and they were all fighting with him, but he was the world amateur champion. You might remember, as Hideki was, you know. He’d won the world amateur and got actually offered to go and play straight on the PGA Tour and he turned it down because he wanted to play. He wanted to play at Gusta as an amateur and he wouldn’t get the invite. He didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance to play again. So he went and then he won the world the low amateur at the Masters. Then he went and then he won the world the low amateur at the masters. Then he went to college in in fukushima, which was, um, very badly affected by the earthquake, and he was helping them and that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s sorry.

Kieron: 32:38

What’s going on about hideki? Yes, so hideki was low amateur. The kid is the guy, he’s the guy, he’s the. He’s another guy. He hits at sunay is another guy. They’re both european tours, so we’ll see how they go. They just don’t have that same thing that hideki has. They’re superstars here. You know they’re under lots of pressure. They’re already sponsored. They’re all really making millions. Uh, as I said, ikena was the guy that they’re all fighting over. When he was the amateur and I think taylor made signed them for like two or three million dollars wow, okay, okay.

Nish: 33:09

Where’s your incentive to go out? And, like I say, hideki, he likes to grind and he wants to do that, whereas if you’ve already made it I mean, as I mentioned before, I’m of Indian heritage and cricket’s massive in India and with this IPL now you’ve got players in there who just played 20 over cricket and they’re getting these massive sponsorship deals, but they haven’t. You know, they’re there for just crash band one-up and that’s it. You know there’s no working on the technique, there’s no grind, there’s no. Let’s become a better cricketer.

Kieron: 33:45

A special kind of person that wants to do that. You know, like Toygard was like when when you know the famous story but john daly asked him for a drink and all that other stuff. He’s like I’ve gone to to do my 10k run and then I’m going to the gym and and I think hideki was like that, like he could have become professional and he could have gone for all of that, and he wants to play in the masters as an amateur because that was his chance to fulfill a dream and and he he only went to. I remember he first returned down to go on the pga tour because of he wanted to stay in japan because of what happened in fukushima, where he’s. He’s from ehime, but he went to college up there and they were saying, no, you should go, because you know people want inspiration to see you perform well over there. And then he went out and look he’s. I think he’s worked 111 times now, including the Masters, so amazing. For him.

Nish: 34:30

I know, remember there was this iconic shot, wasn’t there, when he’d won the Masters and he sort of took his hat off and he bowed to the course. It was wonderful. That was the caddy that was the caddy that was it, it was the caddy. Yeah, Wonderful that.

Kieron: 34:46

Yeah, I mean that that was just because it’s on on a early on a monday morning, because it’s sunday there, right, and it’s monday morning here, so 7 am everyone’s watching japanese tvs on japanese tv and I think it got the highest ever rating of any golf ever in japan and people were just freaking out about it. And I remember we got these t-shirts made up and it was of. It was like a, it was like a still of that moment where he was holding the flag and he and he bows to the course and it was kind of, you know, it was stylized a bit to make it look like a cartoon and everyone had that t-shirt. Amazing, you know, bearing to the car, I’ll tell you.

Nish: 35:22

what I loved about that was um, gonna get a bit a bit deep philosophical here here, but society’s moving on into this instant gratification. You’re out there to get whatever you want and those basic tenets I think sometimes of good manners, politeness, respect. They’re disappearing, but I think that’s very much alive in Japan, in Japanese culture.

Kieron: 35:50

It is. I mean, you know don’t get me wrong there’s mad stuff that happen here, but nothing compared to what we see in other countries. That’s what I’m saying. Like it’s a great place for families and you know, you come here and you’ll be on the train in the morning and you’ll see just these tiny little four-year-olds everywhere. You know they’re just going to school by themselves, nobody touches them, nobody bothers them, nobody disrespects each other. Now you do get the occasional weirdo and and all the rest of it, but it’s, it’s such a safe country. I could never imagine raising my children anywhere else, because I want them to be able to go, cycle the bike and meet their mates somewhere else and and do those things safely, you know? And uh, then they really can in japan yeah, it’s amazing, absolutely amazing.

Nish: 36:32

Kieran, thank you so much for your time today no, no worries, I’m glad you, you sort of uh, verified my opinions of japanese golf, like I was expecting it to be amazing and you just you painted a great picture of it look, it’s probably a bit of a holy grail kind of place.

Kieron: 36:49

It’s a long place. It’s a long place. It’s a long way from the uk. I mean, I do it twice a year from going home, visiting home, and it’s it’s a. It’s hard to get here and the flights are expensive different time zone and whatever but if you’re ever going to go to japan, there’s the time because, as I said, it’s just so much cheaper. Yeah, here, um, like, I just paid less than a pound for a 7% Chuhai, I have to give a shameless plug to our service. So, golf-in-japancom, please check us out, send us a message. The team would love to hear from you. We’ll take care of you when you come over.

Nish: 37:24

I can’t leave you without asking one more question. You’re from Dublin and there are some unbelievable golf courses on your fair isle. Um, what’s been the best one that you’ve ever played?

Kieron: 37:37

that I’ve ever played. I I you know because I did most of my golf here, because I wouldn’t, you know. Um, when I was a kid I played golf and then I stopped for many years because I was more interested in playing guitar and chasing girls. But I would say, old head, old head’s cool, connemara, connemara is just mega. Um, now saying that, I’d love to, you know, to play um some of the more posher golf courses, but they’re just too expensive and hard to get tea time. But I think connemara is good and around the dublin area, port marnock is a members course. But if you can get in there, that’s an amazing place. K Club, if you can afford it. Portrush obviously never played it, actually, but Portrush probably got to be on everyone’s bucket list. Oldhead, I’d say.

Nish: 38:24

I didn’t know much about Oldhead but it’s come up a few times in the last maybe three or four weeks because we’re looking at for 2026, doing an irish trip to go play four or five of the top 100 courses people, a lot of people mentioned.

Kieron: 38:41

So it’s a fantastic golf course. It’s just an amazing piece of piece of land that they actually got a chance to. I think they they only developed it probably in the early 2000s, but got a chance to the, I think they they only developed it probably in the early 2000s, but so it’s. It’s just like this. It is what it is. It’s a headland jutting out on a very high cliff and it just goes, you know, and it, and just enough for two fairways side by side going out. You’ve got this castle gate old, pre, you know, really old, like castle gate there, and you’ve got a lighthouse at the end and, if the weather behaves, I don’t think there’s a better view in golf. It’s just spectacular and the wind and everything, it’s just brilliant. Wow, I cannot wait.

Nish: 39:22

But that’s the beauty of what you’re doing. It’s just you know you can. It almost doesn’t matter how you play, it’s just you look at it and you go. This is a feast for the eyes. It’s wonderful you never asked me which golf course in Japan is the best? Actually, which is the best one in Japan? Good good, Kieran, I’ll edit that out so it makes it sound like I asked you the question. So, I’ll do it that way.

Kieron: 39:42

Kowana is probably I think it is world top 50. I think it’s like 46 or 48. It could be wrong on that. Koana is where marilyn monroe and joe dimaggio went on honeymoon. It’s owned by prince hotel to have to stay to play. The fuji course has two courses there. It’s kind of like pebble beach so it’s, you know, right on the, it’s right on the, on the sea, beautiful, nice weather day. It’s just fantastic place to play. That’s good. Personal favorite I like kasunigaseki, where I was telling you they had the olympics.

Kieron: 40:10

Um, just the attention to detail and a uniquely japanese design right and it’s not trying to mimic anything parkland from or links from from europe or america, it’s just japanese. So I really like that one. But there’s so many really really good golf courses around um, as I said, I mean just within driving distance. You’ve probably a thousand around tokyo.

Nish: 40:34

So it’s not because that yeah, I haven’t got.

Kieron: 40:37

I haven’t played them all yet. So so far it’s probably because somebody followed me on instagram.

Nish: 40:41

I mean I’ve been chatting to people very kind to invite to carnusity, but they’re trying to play all of the golf, all golf courses in scotland and I think that’s like 600 odd, which I was. That blew my mind. But 2,400, 1,000 just around Tokyo and then 2,400 in the country is mind-blowing.

Kieron: 40:59

I think I’ve played close to 200 now. Wow, maybe a bit more.

Nish: 41:04

Yeah, so you made a very, very small dent.

Kieron: 41:09

I’m sure I heard that there was one guy who’s played every golf course in Japan. Oh, my goodness, I think he sold his company, sold his company’s IT start when he was in his 20s and he’s now in his 60s and he just plays golf three, four times a week and he’s just played and played and played.

Kieron: 41:26

You think about, in the north you’ve got Hokkaido right, which is fucking fucking, you know like in the winter it’s just completely covered in snow amazing skiing, by the way here. Then you’ve got okinawa all the way in the south, which is tropical. God knows how many islands there’s probably as many islands here as there are golf courses, which is a lot.

Nish: 41:42

I mean, if you, if you can get your fame and fortune, if you can play that variety of golf courses, if you can become a minor celebrity from from doing it, why would you go and play your golf anywhere else?

Kieron: 41:54

just stay where you are yeah, absolutely, and it is a very domestic place, right they. They have everything they need right here. They don’t really need anything, yeah, from overseas, including sport, entertainment, all the rest of it.

Nish: 42:08

Yeah, why take your chances with a dodgy halfway hut? That’s going to serve you, bovril. There’s no point. Don’t see the need to do that.

Kieron: 42:18

I wouldn’t need a raw egg anywhere else in Japan.

Nish: 42:22

Yeah, that’s it, kieran. Thank you for your time today. That’s been absolutely wonderful. Look, everyone. Please go to check these guys out. I’m going to put all the links up in our video and our podcast. Thanks so much, mate, I appreciate that, but I will look forward to contacting you when I’ve twisted my wife’s arm a little bit to take everyone out to Japan.

Kieron: 42:44

Do it mate. Okay, I look forward to seeing you then.

Nish: 42:46

Brilliant Thanks, kieran. Well everyone that seeing you then. Brilliant thanks, kieran. Well everyone. That was kieran from golf in japan. What a fantastic place to play golf japan sounds. I’m definitely gonna book a trip at some point, so keep an eye out for for any content about that. But I love the way that he was. He was describing something that feels so exclusive and feels so special and that’s just a common occurrence in japan how how golf is is experienced. So, yeah, absolutely love it. Uh, we’ll obviously put a lot of content up about uh around this. And what a lovely chat kieran was. Until next time on the top 100 in 10 golf podcast.