Golf Course Commemoration Day

What Is Golf Course Commemoration Day?

Every May 24th is "Golf Course Commemoration Day" (ゴルフ場記念日, Gorufujō Kinenbi) in Japan. On May 24, 1903, the Kobe Golf Club (神戸ゴルフ倶楽部) — Japan's first golf course — officially opened on the slopes of Mount Rokko in Kobe. The club was established by Arthur Hesketh Groom, a British tea merchant and businessman living in Kobe, A four-hole course was completed in 1901, and in 1903 the members-only Kobe Golf Club was established with nine holes (expanded to 18 in 1904). Japan's golf era had begun.

Arthur Groom and the Birth of Golf in Japan

Arthur Hesketh Groom came to Japan in the late 1860s to work for Glover & Co. and later ran a trading business in Kobe, exporting Japanese tea. A keen mountaineer, he developed Mount Rokko as a resort, and he is said to have come up with the idea of building a golf course on the inexpensive land of Rokko-san to attract older members to the foreign settlement's sports clubs. The course was built mainly by and for the foreign community, and golf gradually spread to Japanese players in the following decades.

Golf's Spread Through Japan

From its elite foreign-resident origins, golf spread gradually through Japanese society over the 20th century. A second course — the Tokyo Golf Club (東京ゴルフ倶楽部) — opened in 1914 in Tokyo, and by the 1960s the rapid growth of Japan's middle class fueled a golf boom. At the sport's peak popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, green fees at top Japanese courses commanded extraordinary sums, and golf club memberships were traded as financial assets. Japan today has more than 2,000 golf courses.

Japanese Golf Today

Golf remains deeply embedded in Japanese business culture — the golf course as a venue for relationship-building and deal-making is a fixture of corporate Japan. At the competitive level, Japan has produced major international tournament winners, and the Japan Golf Tour (JGTO) and the JLPGA (women's tour) attract strong domestic followings. Japanese players like Hideki Matsuyama — the 2021 Masters champion and first Japanese man to win a major — have raised the sport's profile further.

Fun Facts

• Kobe Golf Club today: The Kobe Golf Club still operates on Rokko-san as Japan's oldest golf club, and Groom is often called the "father of Rokko-san" for his role in developing the mountain.
• Hideki Matsuyama: Matsuyama's 2021 Masters victory at Augusta National was a watershed moment for Japanese golf, celebrated nationwide and sparking renewed enthusiasm for the sport among Japanese youth.