There are 300 booths at Kasai set on 3 floors.

It is cold in Japan right now, but playing sports can help to keep you warm! I went for a bit of golf practice at Kasai Lotte range (about 30 minutes out of Tokyo) recently. Lotte is one of the bigger ranges in town and is normally very busy. You can see in the picture here how full it looks. I think this was around 10pm.

The Lotte Kasai golf range is 250 yard long which is pretty good for Japan. A lot of ranges are 100 yards or less in the city.

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As the sky gets darker and the lights come on, the course takes on a different type of shape

Before the heat of the summer arrived, I went out for a game of night golf in Chiba with some friends. The course was about 1 hours drive from the center of Tokyo and had excellent lighting for night golf. The cool breezes coming over the hills made it seem a long way from the concrete of Tokyo.

This hole is one of the more challenging ones. Time to hit your tee shot straight here. No escape if you go left or right. Anyone want to take this next shot for me?

Looking over at the city lights

Nice open fairway ahead. The lights keep the approach well lit

The valleys are dark, fairways light. Best to stick to the light

A nice turning hole with the lights doing a great job. It almost seems easier to hit the fairway at night with the danger out of your eyesight

Waiting for the green to clear ahead

Lots of light and greenery looking back to the clubhouse

If you are planning to play some golf in Japan, I recommend you give night golf a go. It can be less crowded then playing in the daytime and a lot more fun as well.

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Photo from http://sports.livedoor.com showing Takemura Makoto

Japan golf is riding a new wave of popularity with Ishikawa Ryo in the mens section and now a group of women coming on to the scene who are changing the traditional views of golf wear.

One such newcomer to the womens field is Takemura Makoto. She turned Pro recently and has already started to get glowing articles written about her even though her scores have yet to be overly impressive.

Some articles have labeled her “the extremely beautiful golf Pro”

There is an official site for Takemura Makoto and her sisters here.

The Japan Golf Association page for Takemura Makoto shows her latest progress in events.

On the fashion angle, take a look at what Takemura-san was wearing on the course today.

Photo by golfdigest.co.jp, a good source of info on Japanese golf.

I thought these were boots when I first saw them, but then found out they were leg warmers. Can’t imagine the men sporting gear like this. It definitely will be interesting to see what comes out next.

Have you ever seen anyone else wearing leg warmers like this in a Professional golf tournament?

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There are about 10 booths across on both the ground and 2nd floor

I came out to the Shinagawa Golf Center at Oimachi to have a hit of golf. Oimachi is one station down from Shinagawa on the Keihin-tokhoku Line. The range is close to the station and not that expensive. The booth cost 300 yen to hire and then the balls had to be paid for on top. It cost me about 2,000 Yen to hit approx 100 balls.

The range is not that long, but it feels open enough to have a hit

The land is actually shared with Mitsubishi Juko. Maybe they own it and love golf

Normally I go out to Kasai where there is a much bigger (250 yard and about 300 booth) range, but sometimes close is good and the SGC had some laid back charm in a crowded city feel about it. Kasai also normally ends up costing me about YEN 10,000.

View from across the street, just minutes from Oimachi Station

You can walk easily from Oimachi Station. It only takes about 4-5 minutes. Some people come by car, and in this photo you can see a few bikes as well.

The entrance to the SGC (Shinagawa Golf Center)

Where do you normally practice your golf in Japan?

More Information

• Shinagawa Golf Center webpage (Japanese language)

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Tiger v. Ryo Ishikawa

Ryo Ishikawa has been added to the team for the Presidents Cup by Greg Norman. In the first round match he will be paired with Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy against Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker.

Ryo Ishikawa is considered by many in Japan to be the Japanese version of Tiger Woods. When he played alongside Tiger in the British Open, there were as many if not more media following Ryo than Tiger.

It will be good to see a Japanese golfer doing battle on the international team. I just checked the TV guide and I think i can see this live from 3:30 in the morning.

Who do you think will win from this pairing?

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view of the Koga Links course from the porthole

This weeks golf was at Koga Golf Links Club in Ibaragi-ken (茨城県). Most courses in Japan are built in the mountains which means a lot of walking up and down hills. In contrast, the Koga Links course is built by the riverbed and is nice and flat.

the pathway from the club house to the course

Looking up towards the Koga Links club house

Nice day to be out on the course

As with most courses in Japan (with the exception of Hokkaido), you take a break after nine holes and have lunch. Beer is a popular choice to wash the lunch down for most Japanese golfers, and normally leads to a more relaxed swing on the back nine!

The lunch time restaurant

Today's lunch was curry rice and salad. Nice !

From the restaurant window

A view of Japan through the porthole from the opposite side of the club house

Ryo Ishikawa used to play at Koga Links course.

Saying hi to Ryo Ishikawa and his Acquarius water advert

Found some Lohas Water here. the Lohas buzz word was popular a few years ago. Havent heard it so much recently

It was difficult to show in the photos the openness of the course and how peaceful the setting was. Sometimes I had to remind myself I was actually playing golf in Japan and not Hawaii.

Getting ready to chalk up some birdies

As a public course, the fee to play is quite cheap. The course condition was good, but this Marshal’s car definitely could do with an upgrade.

the Marshals car doesnt look too healthy does it?

The fairways were well kept and the greens running fast. nice

Until next time .....

More Information

• Koga Golf Links website
• course info from Golf in Japan website (English)

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Ryo Ishikawa, picture from golf-walls.com

Ryo Ishikawa is considered by many in Japan to be the Japanese version of Tiger Woods. He hasn’t won that many tournaments yet, but he has certainly developed a deep fan base that believes in his future. Still only in his teens, Ishikawa’s future looks like it will include some major international championship wins.

He may get a chance to notch up the first overseas win at this year’s British Open. The organizers of the tournament have decided to create a ‘must be watched’ television spot for Japan in pairing Ryo Ishikawa with Tiger Woods for the first two days.

Tiger Woods at the British Open, picture from theonion.com

Tiger is hugely popular in Japan, and the combination of Tiger with Ishikawa should be very interesting. Maruyama Shigeki also used to play well when he was paired with Tiger and I’m sure the commentators will be drawing some comparisons.

Tee off will be at 9:09am UK time on this Thursday, July 16th 2009, which should make it viewable in Japan in the early evening and then 2:20pm local UK time on Friday.

Ishikawa won the Mizuno Open to qualify for the British Open and hopefully will be in top form when he competes this week. Tiger has already won three British Opens and will be keen to increase his total number of Major Wins to 16. Let’s hope they both fire on the day and provide some excitement for viewers.

If you haven’t seen Ishikawa’s swing before then here is a good chance to study it in slow motion with swingvision

and then off course there is Tiger.

Thanks
Thanks to Leo Nooyen for emailing to tell me about this great story and to Sports ESPN for the info on tee times

More Info

• Story on the British Open site about Tiger Woods and Ryo Ishikawa.
• The official site for the British Open gives up-to-date information on players and course conditions.
• Tiger Woods Home Page

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Teeing it up with Rilakkuma

Just catching up now on the photos from the golfing trip last week with Rilakkuma. The weather was not bad, the score not the greatest, but Rilakkuma came out pretty good in the photos.

The course was nice and open, fairways green after the rain

Rilakkuma handling the steering for a while

The course was just across the Aqualine and was called AquaLine Golf. We had not played there before but had heard it was popular because of its close location to Tokyo.

getting the gear ready for putting

sign telling the golf carts where to stop

The trip to the course only took 45 minutes from central Tokyo, but again I had to get up at 5am to get organized, pick a friend up and get to the course for an early start. Unusually, they offered us to play through after nine holes, but I actually felt like going back to bed rather than heading straight back out so we took a break and had lunch, at 10am in the morning.

There was a really nice bamboo feature here behind the green

Another nice shot of the bamboo walk. Quite an unusual feature for a golf course

Riding backwards. The writing says make sure to hold on to the bar with both hands (paws?)

The course was not the best we have every played, but its convenience can not be understated. The drive on the highway was fast, and once you left the highway it was only a 5km trip to the course. Going back was also a quick trip.

Rilakkuma gives advice on how to play the 18th hole

Not a bad drive but we still have 193 yards to go

riding it in to the club house

Here is a link to information about the course from Golf in Japan (in English)

Here is the official course site, with plenty of information in English. The course is owned by Accordia Golf.

Accordia Golf cart

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More about this below, but first things first ...

Perfect day for golf

You have to read these tweets from the bottom up.

Thanks to the following for participating in the golf tweet.
@ShaneSakata @OtakuUniverse @suzumu @timo54 @Alpharalpha @Darrel_Nelson @er17a @numer0bis @tdlucas @trailwalkerjp @sochagota @tiffication @c_rh @tokyotopia

If you are on Twitter you might want to look at following these guys along with @shibuya246

The golf was great but the real adventure started after we left the course

My friend generating some good club head speed. I estimate 100 km per hour

Golf cart on the course. The cart only went at about 15 km per hour

Having spent a good day on the course we set off back for Tokyo. It takes about 1 hour 10 minutes to drive in the morning from Tokyo to the course at 6:30am, but on the way back the traffic builds up and it can take over 2 hours.

We decided to leave the course as fast as possible and try to get a headstart on the rush hour traffic. Paying our YEN 300 and heading down a 有料道路, toll road, which was a dual carriageway, we thought the speed limit was about 80 kph, when we saw a couple of policemen waving us over to the side for a ………………… speeding fine !!!

How many police does it take to translate 'you were speeding' into English?

The convoy of vehicles needed to catch us

My friend in the back of the paddy wagon. Looks comfortable though

Yes officer, my buddy was telling me to go faster, faster

Looks like they are adding up the golf score after a competition round. What did Tiger score?

While my friend was busy being booked I had a chat with a few of the other officers, who told me it was to hot for them to be out here doing this work. I wondered if they were waiting for my approval to say “You can go home now lads.”

Just as I was taking a few more photos, one policeman hurriedly approached me and in a demanding tone said “What photos did you just take?”, “You can’t take photos inside our vehicle!”, “Show me your photos”. I pointed to a few of the shiny police cars and asked him what there names were and he forgot about the photos luckily.

Here is the wagon-sha (ワゴン車) that saved my camera from being confiscated

'Oh what a beautiful police car. What do you call it?'

and the car I probably would have got a ride in if I had stuck around any longer

Anyone for a ride?

'No comment'

I took over the driving for the rest of the trip but we had a feeling our drive home was going to be a long one. To our surprise, just when we were putting the police behind us, we were overtaken by these speeding pigs.

My friend could barely keep the camera still for laughing at this scene

I hope they got tested at Narita before they got off the plane

They actually looked to be very clean pigs

Once we safely negotiated the pigs again, we were almost caught up in a four car smash just ahead of us.

Luckily no one was hurt. It seemed a bit opportunistic to be taking photos but the camera was already out watching for the pigs again. Here are the shots of the accident right in front of us.

Accident in progress

That must have hurt ...

Looking back he is still in the vehicle but looks to be ok

Here is the backend of the Twitter conversation with some good suggestions for getting out of a speeding fine

What situations have you got into with the police in Japan. I would like to hear other peoples experiences or great escape stories. Use the comment section to share the fun.

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There is more to the above story and I have to get the photos organized, so until tomorrow, here is a look at some great cloud pattern shots I took while on the course.

streaky white lines through the sky

wispy white mixed in with a blue sky

Nice whites

I played with the photoshop settings and got this interesting result

Not so many clouds here, but I promised my friend I would get a good action shot of his golf. (this is prior to the meeting with the police)

Clouds in the city
Another friend sent me some photos yesterday near their house also showing some strange cloud patterns.

Earthquake clouds
In Japan, strange cloud patterns are sometimes said to be a forewarning to natural disasters such as earthquakes. On the 地震情報サイト (earthquake information website, JIS), they explain what to look for.

Here are some images from Google for clouds, (not all earthquake clouds)

Normally, the clouds are more of a solid mass which appear in the same place for an extended period of time prior, and are different to 飛行機雲 airplane clouds, that are easily blown or shaped in the wind. They normally appear just before or upto 2 weeks prior to an earthquake.

They do state that there can be many reasons for these cloud formations, and that earthquakes are just one possibility. I doubt the clouds in the photo are earthquake clouds, but it is interesting to note the discussion of cloud patterns.

JIS website diagram
This diagram from the JIS website shows some different types of cloud patterns.

diagram from the JIS website showing cloud patterns

More golf
The photos here are no doubt just wispy white clouds enjoying the beautiful blue skies we have had recently, but just to confirm whether the clouds are still in the same place next week, I have another game of golf orgainized.

Get ready to tee it up

Tomorrow, I will get the photos together for the story about the drive home from golf involving an unexpected visit to the back of a police van, a near run in with a truck full of pigs and almost being involved in a four car smash on the highway. In amongst that we shot some video of the drive over the Rainbow Bridge.

If the golf was not excitement enough, it really was a wild ride on the way home!

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The promotion copy says “Take Me Out To The Golf Course” (私をゴルフにつれてって) and the event is in its second season.

To get a round of golf with one of these girls you need to make a booking through the ALBA web site and then go in the draw. The more bookings you make the more chance you have to take one of them to the course!

It should be noted the girls appear to have been chosen for their looks rather than their golf score. Entry No.8, Kyoko Suzuki has a best score of 115 and Midori Nakajima has a best score of 145. On a bad day she might score 200+

The girls have their own blog page (Japanese language) to keep you up-to-date with their activities. http://alba-girls-blog2.alba.co.jp/

For a look at other golf photos by these girls you can catch them at http://photo.alba.co.jp/?q=gal

Here are some samples from their website to pique your interest:

Not sure why she is riding the club here?

Nice gold golf ball!!

The winner of the outfit contest

Working that follow through

Last minute practice

If you want to play golf with some foreigners in Japan you can take a look at the community of gaijin golfers at http://gaijingolfers.com

Which entry number girl golfer would you like to play a a round with? I wonder if they run a competition where female golfers get to play with hot male golfers who shoot in the 200′s?

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Follow the hole towards Mt Fuji

I recently had the chance to play golf at Asagiri Country Golf which is located right next to Mt Fuji. The views from the golf course of Mt Fuji were excellent, although there was quite a bit of haze about which made Mt Fuji appear a little pale.

Here are some views of the course. There is not much to say about each photo individually. It was really a great day with good weather and beautiful surroundings.

Hard to keep focus with that in the background

Greens were in good condition

For those planning a trip here is the link to the Golf Club’s website. http://www.asagiri.co.jp/ They have a good practice area with a 250 yard range. You can practice putting as well as chipping.

Also, you can find information on many Japanese golf courses through the following English language site, http://www.golf-in-japan.com/

And to find a group of foreigners to play with in Japan you might try http://www.gaijingolfers.com/

Asagiri Country Club, Scorecard

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