What's it like to golf in Japan? FAQ of Asia's best kept golfing secret

Booking
Booking a tee time in any non-English speaking country can be a challenge but it's getting much easier here in Japan. 

Booking through Hotels and agents
Most hotels will be able to book a round for you, but if it's short notice then probably midweek and courses outside of Tokyo or the other larger cities is the best option. There are both large and bespoke tour operators in Japan, but they will only deal with a handful of courses but could be the best option if you don't fancy doing it yourself.

Tour operators:
- JTB Golf tours (Japan's biggest tour operator)
- Esprit Golf (Custom tours for groups traveling from overseas)
- Walk Japan (Bespoke tours for small groups/individuals)

English booking:
There are not so many golf courses in Japan that can accept bookings in English, the market here is almost 100% domestic customers only. However the below courses have good Englsih service:
Tsutsujigaoka Country Club
Murasakizuka Golf Club
Windsor Park GC
Harunanomori CC
Taiheiyo GC

Online booking
Online booking is very popular in Japan. Sites offer a lot of user-based rankings, discounts and remarkable offers for featured courses, however, all do not have English service. If you can work with Google translate etc. then it is worth giving one of these a try:
Rakuten's GORA (The biggest online Golf booking site)
Golf Digest Online
ALBA

Local Foreign Golf groups and outings:
Head over to our community section to see what's happening!

In Japan, you will most likely be playing from the white tees - this is the regular tee, with the black or blue being competition or long tees, gold being senior and pink or red being ladies. You will see as your tee up, a flag in the middle of the fairway about 230 yards from the whites. This indicates a good position for the next shot and also as a guide - usually when the next group passes it is generally, OK to play away (If you're a long hitter- better to hang on another minute or two).

The white stakes

The white stakes indicate OB, most courses in Japan will have a lot of these- so always check the hole guide. If you do go OB and If indicated, players can be required to play their 4th shot from forward tees (usually about 100 yards from the pin)

This can even be the case for par 3's which can have 'play 3' forward tees!. Like it or hate it it's part of the game here and is intended to speed up the round. The forward tee is usually indicated by yellow or white tee ground stakes in the fairway.

The Yellow stakes
The yellow stakes (can be yellow and black) indicate an area like an OB line, if your ball crosses you are required to take a drop with a one-shot penalty. Your drop can be within two club lengths of the point of crossing but no closer to the hole.

Blue Stakes
This is ground under repair and is usually accompanied by a chalked border, you can lift your ball and drop at the nearest point of relief from the chalk boundary.

Start your engines
On most courses in Japan, it's expected you will go out in carts (it's included in your green fee) but if you prefer - you can walk the course, but don't expect bag trolleys to be available - there are none! A lot of courses have remote control carts so it is possible to walk while the cart lugs the clubs on the cart track to the side of the fairway.

In Japan, most courses are planted with native korai grass for the course and bent for the greens. Korai dies off in the winter and becomes a pale yellow (though many courses paint the fairways with a dyed fertilizer). Korai is a dense grass and once in season is quick growing and has a thick root system.

Two greens?
It was popular in Japan to have two greens on every hole, particularly for courses built before the 90's.  The idea was to have a winter green of bent and a summer of korai.  These days the same courses will plant both with bent and alternate them to allow for recovery and aeration treatment etc. A good tip is if you're going by the course yardage markers - right side of the fairway markers will indicate the right green and the distance to its centre, and the left markers the left green centre.

The dreaded pitch mark goblin!
Something that drives everyone bonkers when they play in Japan is the pitch marks, or should I say lack of pitch repairing that seems to be going on. All Japanese golfers that we have played with seem to fix their pitch marks, but there are a lot of older golfers who back in the day (when a caddy was required) got used to having it done for them, and as sad as it is, do not repair, so you will see pitch marks on the green. Despite this, Japanese greens are some of the finest in the world and the dedicated green keepers are relentlessly checking during and after the rounds to make sure their greens are top notch.

This is something that you just have to accept as part of the game (usually). No matter what time you teed off, you generally will break after nine holes for 40 minutes or so and eat lunch.

Diehards, of course, can go to the range or the practice green, but what we say is 'when in Nippon'... Golf in Japan has many intricacies and these should be enjoyed! Plus, the lunch sets are usually high quality, delicious and inexpensive and we recommend some Soba or Udon!

There are also usually tea houses on the course where you can purchase snacks and beer etc. This would be only a short stop for a minute or two - you cannot hold up the group behind!