Kasumigaseki (East)

The East and the West are two outstanding golf courses at Kasumigaseki Country Club. East or West, which is best? We’re really not too sure, but the East is the one that the members generally favour, so we think it’s prudent to stick with those in the know.

Kasumigaseki Country Club was founded in 1929. Kinya Fujita and Shiro Akaboshi, two gifted local golfers, originally designed the first course, now known as the East, and it was ready for play the same year. The members were clearly dissatisfied with the original design so Harry Colt’s partner Hugh Alison was soon commissioned to improve matters. Alison’s changes to Kasumigaseki immediately gained the utmost respect from Japanese golfers and he is now widely considered to be the guiding light of Japanese golf course architecture.

So, what did Alison actually do at Kasumigaseki to gain cult status? The answer is simple. He built cavernous bunkers. The par three 10th is a perfect example and this hole is possibly the finest par three in Japan. This was a good hole in the beginning – a 180-yard one-shotter across water to a relatively small green – but Alison turned it into a great hole. Originally, the bunker protecting the front of the green was little more than a shallow scrape by the time Alison had finished it was six feet deep and this is the general theme behind his improvements to the East course.

Tom and Logan Fazio recently completed an East course renovation which was a prerequisite to the club's hosting of the Tokyo Olympics, which was scheduled to take place in 2020 but was postponed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Fazio's eliminated the East's traditional Japanese dual green system and also a good number of trees during the extensive remodel.