Japanese Fascinated by Golf Whether on Links or on TV

Kagehisa Toyama isn’t the only Japanese who is gonzo for golf.

A craze for the sport has overtaken his country in recent years, making the American devotion to baseball and football tepid by comparison.

In Japan, golf club memberships, which average about $200,000, are bought and sold on the open market as speculative commodities. Admission to Tokyo’s posh Koganei Country Club carries a price tag of $2.4 million. Just playing a round usually runs several hundred dollars.

When Japanese golfers compete in U.S. tournaments, their every move is broadcast live to millions of fans back home, often in the wee hours of the morning. During the 1987 U.S. Open, for instance, only two competitors were Japanese, but a press corps of more than 100 Japanese journalists followed them across the links.

“There is probably no nationality in the world that has the fascination for golf that the Japanese have,” said Rich Skyzinski, media relations manager for the U.S. Golf Assn. “It’s simply phenomenal. The media in Japan cover golf more so than any other media in the world.”

The Japanese passion for the sport can be traced to 1957, when Pete Nakamura won individual honors at the World Cup and then joined with partner Koichi Ono to beat the U.S. team, which included stars Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret.

The rise of more Japanese golfers to the world-class level in the last 10 years has helped fuel that love. Ayako Okamoto, one of the top female players in the world today, is practically a national heroine.

Copying Americans

“It’s just the makeup of the people there--they always try to copy the Americans,” said Hiro Hishiki, publisher of the Little Tokyo-based California Japanese Daily News. “And they live in such an insular country. Whenever a craze takes hold, it’s just like a wildfire.”

Explanations for golf’s intense popularity in Japan vary.

In one case, the several million followers of the Church of Perfect Liberty are urged to use the sport as a means for achieving spiritual fulfillment.

The church, founded in 1946 by Tokuchika Miki, the son of a Buddhist priest, preaches that when human affairs are approached as art, then life becomes a creative endeavor capable of inspiring religious exaltation.

“Do not envy those who belong to exclusive golf clubs!” wrote Miki, who died in 1983. “We will provide golf courses for you--the finest in the land. Relate the principles of golf to life. Live for the satisfaction of the artistic life.”