Matsuyama's Masters Win and Golf in Japan

[nevets88]

I haven't really kept up with the popularity of golf in Japan. Last I remembered, it was on a downward trend, but was pretty sure covid would pick things up. So before covid, there was this. Granted, piece is 5 years old.

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Subscribe to read | Financial Times

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News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

Japan’s golf courses, the obsessively sculpted symbols of the bubble era, are closing at the rate of nearly one a week, the latest victim of the country’s skewed demographics.

Efforts by the industry to deflect the “2015 problem” — the collective recognition by Japan’s baby boomers that golf is too expensive and time-consuming to play regularly — have failed. Thousands of baby boomers, much to the dismay of Japan’s golf courses, have opted to retire from golf shortly after retiring from work.

Campaigns aimed at younger Japanese have failed to inspire a generation that does not see golf as proof of status, views weekends as sacrosanct and sees no career-driven obligation to tee off with bosses or clients.

 

 

But it sounds like things have been turning around, albeit slowly.

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Like in the U.S., as well, golf benefited during the pandemic. Krzynowek also notes that even with fewer golfers, Japan still generates significantly more sales per player than the U.S. and still produces the second-highest spending per player behind South Korea. Krzynowek says that while there are roughly one-third as many golfers in Japan as in the U.S., they account for half as much as the total dollars spent on golf equipment by U.S. golfers.

“An interesting fact here is that we have more young players and female players compared to before COVID-19,” said veteran Japanese golf business insider Sunny Harue Marumo.

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What’s not clear is how directly Matsuyama can influence attitudes going forward, not just because of his natural reticence but because his Masters victory can’t truly be celebrated during the coronavirus pandemic, which again has placed Japan in a state of emergency. When Higuchi won her major championship in 1977, there was a ticker-tape parade upon her return to Tokyo. Matsuyama flew back to Japan this week but immediately had to go into quarantine for two weeks.

 

Ripple Effect: How Hideki Matsuyama's Masters win could revive golf's popularity in Japan | Golf News and Tour Information | GolfDigest.com

 

But the overall trend hopefully is that golf is more accessible to the general public in Japan.

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Over the almost three decades since, the golf culture began to swing away from having such strong corporate ties. Doors opened to make it more available to more people.  Matsuyama was one of the prime beneficiaries. Isao Aoki, the first Japanese man to win a PGA Tour event in 1983, had only been introduced to the game when he began as a caddie. Matsuyama had the chance to play when he was very young.

“That’s the new breed,” Ishizaka said.

Expanding the game has meant tweaking the way golf is played in Japan, where an 18-hole outing is often played with nine holes, followed by a lengthy sit-down meal, and then another nine. It’s such a savored experience that instead of trying to blitz through a round in four hours, it becomes a day-long experience. The courses, especially older ones, are also historically laid out with two greens to keep them playable across multiple seasons.

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The game has also targeted women more aggressively in recent years. Yukino Kikuma, a lawyer and avid amateur golfer, said that while old-line courses often have small locker rooms for women and sometimes prohibit them from playing on Sundays, others have become popular recently by catering to women and younger players.

“It used to be a sport for the older guys to play for business. Now the number of younger people is going up,” she said. “And it’s the only sport that’s open during the pandemic.”

Since the pandemic hit, some Japanese club operators have pitched the golf course as a good place for a “work-cation.” The idea of combining work and a vacation was advocated by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to revive rural regions. Industry watchers say the pandemic is an opportunity to stress the health benefits of playing golf, since the sport takes place outside and people aren’t crowded together so they’re unlikely to spread the coronavirus.

Despite that progress, golf has remained tremendously expensive—and difficult to reach via affordable travel, especially from big cities like Tokyo. Many of the biggest golf nuts in Japan, despite the popularity there, chiefly have been able to play just at multi-deck driving ranges.

In 2019, the number of people who played golf at least once fell to 5.8 million, down by more than half from the peak in the 1990s, according to the Leisure White Paper published by the Japan Productivity Center. About half of those players are older than 60.

 

Hideki Matsuyama’s Masters Win and the Next Japanese Golf Boom

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Hideki Matsuyama’s historic first for Japan arrives at a moment when shifts in the country's culture indicate that this will be just the beginning...

 

[Braivo]

Japan is high on my list of places to visit someday. Would love to play some golf there. I love reading about how some of the courses near Tokyo are the busiest in the world. There are no pace of play issues there lol. 

I am happy for Hideki and the country of Japan. 

[chile]

despite the economic difficulties of recent years, golf is still very popular in japan...

[Effington]

I probably live in a bubble, but I have many Japanese colleagues and this was a big deal to them.  One of them literally said some of the higher ups were in tears at such an accomplishment.