Best Golf Courses in Japan
5 ranked courses in Japan
Japan has five clubs in this guide, and four of them are private. Two are in Hyogo Prefecture. Hirono Golf Club at Miki opened in 1932 to a design by Charles Hugh Alison, routed through pine forest and across natural ravines; its par-4 8th, the Ravine Hole, asks for a tee shot over a deep chasm. Naruo Golf Club at Kawanishi was founded in 1920, and the Crane brothers laid out its par-70 course in hill country, with Alison giving recommendations in 1931. It is nicknamed the mountain links, its greens are korai grass, and it held the Japan Senior Open in 2020. Tokyo Golf Club was founded in 1913 and moved to Sayama in Saitama Prefecture in 1940, onto a Komei Otani course through mature cedar and pine. Yokohama Country Club has 36 holes that opened in 1960. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw remodeled its West course in 2016, the Japan Open was played there in 2018, and the PGA Tour's Baycurrent Classic in 2025 used a composite of 16 West holes and two East holes. The one resort course is the Fuji Course at Kawana Hotel in Ito, an Alison design from 1936 on clifftop ground above the Pacific, with Mount Fuji in view on clear days and a par-3 8th played over a rocky ocean cove.
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Top 5 Best Golf Courses in Japan
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About Golf Courses in Japan
Hirono and Naruo are both in Hyogo, and both need a member: Naruo also asks for a jacket on arrival outside June to September. Tokyo Golf Club in Sayama and Yokohama Country Club in Hodogaya are played only as a member's guest. Kawana is a separate trip to Ito on the Izu Peninsula, where staying at the Kawana Hotel is the standard way to book the Fuji Course.
- Ranked courses
- 5
- Course styles
- parkland 4 · coastal 1
- Access
- private 4 · resort 1
- Opened
- 1920–1960
- Playable without membership
- 1 of 5