Who Has Played Hirono or Kawana?

[Tom_Doak]

Reading through the various lists of courses you have to play someday, it occurred to me that there's at least one weakness of this board -- very few have played at all in the Far East.

Besides me, who has played any of the top Japanese courses?

You're going to have a hard time compiling a ranking of the world's best if you only have one vote on those!

[Joe Andriole]

Hirono

[T_MacWood]

Mr. Lewis and Mr. Freeman have played both courses.

[Wayne Freeman]

Tom-  I've heard that trying to play the top rated courses in Japan is almost impossible-  that they are super private and so difficult to get on- maybe not for you, but certainly for mere mortals.  I've pretty much written them off .

[Jonathan Cummings]

Tom - if you want to hear a great story about getting on ALL the Japan ranked courses in one trip, ask your friend Selwyn sometime.  

He won a bet with a Japanese CEO with his payout being the CEO had to get him on all the best Japan courses.  That was the only way that Selwyn could finish the top 100 world lists.

I'll let him tell you what he risked on this bet!

J

[Tom_Doak]

I appreciate that it is difficult to arrange.  I have a good friend in Tokyo who was able to arrange them all, but only because I was in charge of the GOLF Magazine ranking at the time.

However, Kawana is a resort just a couple of hours south of Tokyo by train and car ... any of you could play it.

[Noel Freeman]

I've played them both.. Kawana in 2001 and Hirono this past February..  I was told at Hirono that they only get about 10 gaijin rounds a year and considering I was with some we took up some of those rounds..

Kawana is the bullet train to Atami station and then the local train to Ito and a short cab ride... I will say this about Japan, it is tough to travel without someone who speaks Japanese, the Japanese are very polite but I found there are few fluent in English enough for you to really get by.  I was fortunate that one of my friends is Japanese but raised in Long Island.

Kobe is a great city to visit, the airport is pretty cool when you land on the island at Kansai.  I would say Hirono is a good 40 minute drive from the city center and would be extremely difficult to find without a Japanese guide who knew where it was.