Nihonkai Golf Club

About the club

The Nihonkai Golf Club occupies a lovely site on the shore of the Sea of Japan across from North Korea. Leading native architect Sho Okubo designed the eighteen-hole West+Naka combination here in 1973. Another nine, dubbed the East, was constructed awhile later, and features more level ground and so provides a somewhat different experience from the combination course. The best season for golf here is in the late summer and early fall, between the sweltering weather earlier in the year and the cold weather that closes the course later in the year. The trees—here mainly red pines—that are often planted on Japanese coastal courses as a hedge against erosion are used to particularly good effect at Nihonkai, ensuring that each hole is memorable and sometimes catching the balls of those who are unwary off the tee; don't expect to find the expanses of scrub that characterize English links.