＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I have previously written an article entitled “Today’s Golf World is Looking for Too Much Distance. In that article, I expressed my opinion that we should go back to “miniature garden golf” using the old Persimmon clubs and string balls.
＜Today’s golf world demands too much “distance”.＞
By the way, I recently learned that there is something called “hickory golf,” which aims to return golf to its roots. I feel “I get it” when I learn that there are others who have the same idea as I do.
1. what is hickory golf?
(1) Popularity of Hickory Golf
Recently, a growing number of people are playing golf with hickory (walnut) wooden shafts, which were the mainstream until around the 1920s. This is an attempt to “return to the origins of golf,” in which golfers play with hickory in their hands, wearing tweed knickerbockers and carrying a golf bag down the fairway.
lthough it is still rare in Japan, more and more golfers around the world are returning to their origins in “hickory golf” instead of “modern golf”.
One easy way to enjoy hickory golf in Japan is to take advantage of the “Hickory Golf Package” at the Karuizawa Prince Hotel Golf Course. This allows you to use hickory golf clubs on a rental basis and is a great way to try it out.
(2) World Hickory Open
The first World Hickory Open was held in 2005 in Scotland, the birthplace of modern golf, under the concept of “Hickory Golf, enjoying the original landscape of golf.
The 2014 and 2016 World Hickory Open champion was Sandy Lyle, who had previously won the British Open and Masters. He joked that he was “happy to win four majors,” likening the World Hickory Open to a major.
(3) Japan Hickory Open
In Japan, events named after essayist and TV personality Sawako Agawa have been held since 2013 in various locations, including Karuizawa, Kobe, and Chiba.
In the spring of 2018, the first Japan Hickory Open was held in Kobe, with about 40 participants. Three of these amateur men competed in the 2018 World Hickory Open and won the “group championship” out of 122 participants from 14 countries.
2. golf’s original attire and equipment used
I believe that the “origin of golf” started in Scotland is golf, where people wear “knickerbockers” and use “hickory golf clubs” to hit “string balls”.
(1) “Knickerbockers”
Knickerbockers are a type of pants, “short pants that are below the knee in length and hemmed. Initially, they were popularized as sportswear for baseball and golf, but they have fallen into disuse as baseball and golf attire and are now widely used in Japan as work clothes for construction and civil engineering work.
As far as I know, Payne Stuart (1957-1999), an American professional golfer, used to wear knickerbockers.
(2) “Hickory Golf Clubs.”
Hickory golf clubs were made more than 100 years ago, in the 1900s, with shafts made of walnut wood.
Ball Saint Bobby Jones (1902-1971) was a lawyer and one of the top amateur golfers. He used hickory golf clubs when he achieved the “Annual Grand Slam” (U.S. Open, British Open, U.S. Amateur, and British Amateur) in 1930.
Later, steel shafts and large carbon heads became the norm, and now carbon shafts and large titanium heads are the norm, but when I started playing golf in 1979, wood clubs had steel shafts and persimmon (persimmon wood) heads.
However, it is true that hickory golf clubs are inferior to modern clubs in terms of “distance” because of their smaller clubheads, which make it harder to catch the ball.
(3) “Thread-wound balls
Compared with the current mainstream urethane two-piece balls, which have a hard feel due to their high repulsion performance, the string-wound ball has a softer feel and I liked it. However, it is a fact that the string-wound ball is also inferior to the modern two-piece ball in terms of “distance”.
3. golf is a social event for adults
Aya Takayanagi, a Hickory Golf enthusiast, says, “Golf is not only about scores. It’s not just about the score. It’s a comfortable place for calm socializing,” said Aya Takayanagi, a Hickory golf enthusiast.
4. what i hope for the future of professional golf in japan
Professional golfer Seiichi Numazawa, a well-known commentator on NHK, says, “It is as if golf is now played with tools. Power golf, which favors the flyers, has its own power, but for professionals, we should go back to using regulated tools to convey the true appeal of technique and how to attack the course, which are more important than distance.
I totally agree with him. As someone who had the same thoughts as Mr. Numazawa, I was relieved to know that this was not “mere cynicism of a bad golfer with no distance” who plays only a few rounds a year.
