Tokyo 2020 Olympics: All roads lead to Kasumigaseki
You may recall that for Rio 2016 an elaborate contest was held to determine which architect would design the Olympic Golf Course in Reserva de Marapendi in Barra da Tijuca. The contest was won by Gil Hanse, and despite a problematic build, the course was ready on time and has flourished, against all odds, since the 2016 Olympic Games.
Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024 and LA 2028 will use existing golf courses for the Olympics, but Japan, France and the United States are major golfing nations, unlike Brazil.
Kasumigaseki Country Club is located some 40km West of Tokyo, and is situated next door to Tokyo Golf Club.
The choice of Kasumigaseki as host venue may have surprised a few, but it shouldn't have, as this is perhaps the most important golf course in Japan.
Kasumigaseki opened in 1929 and has two courses, the West and the East, the East will host the Olympic Golf Tournaments. The East Course can play as long as 7,466 yards.
Kasumigaseki has hosted the Japan Open on 4 occasions, most recently in 2006, and the 1999 Japan Women's Open.
But two other tournaments played at Kasumigaseki may well be the two most important in Japanese golfing history. 11 years ago an 18-year-old Hideki Matsuyama won the Asian Amateur Championship here. He shot 15-under-par for the four rounds, as an amateur. It would be the launchpad to his career which would end up with him becoming the first Japanese Male Major Champion earlier this year at Augusta.
Some 53 years earlier though, Kasumigaseki, you could say, was The Country Club of Japan, as in it hosted a historic occasion the like of which we haven't seen very often which sparked a golfing boom.
in 1957 Japan hosted the fifth edition of the Canada Cup, which would become known as the World Cup of Golf. Kasumigaseki was the host, and the tournament attracted a field of top international golfers.
South Africa were represented by Harold Henning and a young Gary Player; the highly talented Flory Van Donck gave Belgium a chance; Australia were looking formidable with Bruce Crampton and Peter Thompson in their side, the USA team were Jimmy Demaret and Sam Snead and England had a team featuring Peter Alliss and Ken Bousfield.
30 countries from 6 continents competed for the title, each having 2-man teams, but the hosts were outsiders.
Japan's team consisted of Koichi Ono and Torakichi Nakamura, and it is fair to say prior to the 1957 World Cup they hadn't achieved anything of note outside of Japan.
Nakamura had won 9 times in Japan, including 2 Japan Open Championships, and Ono had won 3 Japan Opens in his own right, but they were definitely overlooked.
And how wrong it was to do so.
Japan ended up winning by NINE shots from the United States, and Nakamura won the International Trophy by 7 shots from Gary Player and Sam Snead. The result stunned the golfing world, and the 6,000 fans who witnessed it were captivated. Golf would explode across the country and within 15 years Japan would have its own professional tour.
1957 Canada Cup report https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=V3hAAAAAIBAJ...
64 years on from that historic event another chapter in the rich history of this sport is set to be written at Kasumigaseki.
The Par 71 course is a typical Japanese tree-lined course featuring three par-fives, including the monstrous 640-yard fifth. More here http://www.kasumigasekicc.or.jp/english/index.html
Front Nine https://youtu.be/InuBcbuiFbg
Back Nine https://youtu.be/H5YX2AMG7mQ
SHANK, by Matt Hooper
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