Is Japan’s love for golf beginning to fade?

The origins of golf in Japan are said to date back to a group of British expats who played the game at the Kobe Golf Club in the early 20th century.

Under the direction of Arthur Hasketh Groom, the original nine-hole course opened in May 1903; in less than a year the course was expanded to 18 holes.

The Tokyo Golf Club in Komazawa was later established in 1913 to serve local Japanese golfers, but the Japan Golf Association did not exist until 1924.

As the game grew in popularity, more and more courses were built, but progress was hampered by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the anti-Western sentiment that developed in the country in the 1930s and 1940s.

By the time the United States declared war on Japan in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, only 23 courses had been built, many of which were requisitioned for military purposes or converted back to agricultural use.

As conditions improved after the war, Japan began building golf courses again, and by the mid-1950s there were more courses than ever before.

A few years later, Torakichi Nakamura and Koichi Ono won the 1957 Japan Cup (now known as the World Cup), marking the beginning of Japan’s love affair with the sport and the country’s first professional golfer.

By 1964, over 400 courses were offered, and by the early 1970s there were already over 1,000 courses.

This trend continued over the next three decades, and by 2009, Japan reportedly had over 2,400 golf courses, surpassed only by the United States and Great Britain.

Hideki Matsuyama’s victory at the 2021 Masters did not generate the same response as previous triumphs, even though the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were still being felt in Japan at the time.

In 2023, at least five million golfers per month came to play, with a peak of 8.91 million players in October and more than eight million golfers also participating in May and November.

While the numbers in Japan still look quite positive, there are some concerns that Japan has not benefited from the boom in golf participants in the West that occurred after pandemic restrictions were lifted.

Some growth indicators need to be interpreted in their context when it comes to Japan. It doesn’t really make sense for the country to continue building golf courses at the same pace.

Japan’s golfers are well-equipped in terms of facilities, although the cost of participation still represents a significant hurdle for many potential players.

Japanese clubs tend to be quite buttoned up and traditional, which doesn’t necessarily encourage young players to start playing.

There is currently a slight decline in the number of golfers as older players are no longer able to continue playing and the number of new players is also declining.

With over 2,000 golf courses and nearly nine million active players, it would not be fair to say that golf in Japan is in crisis.

But given the density of golf courses, Japanese golf could probably do more to market itself as a mecca of the sport.