Joanne Lefson has never been fond of Japan, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t feel for its people during one of the worst disasters in its history.
I’ve never been a fan of the Japanese. They’ve been killing whales for almost as long as the gentle giants have been on the planet, and if you saw the Academy-acclaimed documentary The Cove (2010), the images of blood-red coves and hacked dolphins will haunt your mind forever.
Avoiding Japanes culture
My godfather also had the unfortunate experience of bumping into a few Japanese generals during WWII and, after a few Scotches on the rocks, he’d tell me all about the torture techniques they used on their prisoners. It was enough to keep my innocent eyes wide open for nights on end. It’s only obvious therefore to assume that I’ve never wanted to go golfing in Japan – nor climb Mount Fuji – or eat sushi for that matter. Out of fear of being tortured, I’d managed to steer clear of any ‘samurai’ until the mid-90s when I became based in Pebble Beach.
At the time, Pebble Beach golf course was swarming with keen, cigar-swinging Japanese golfers. Believe it or not, it was cheaper for them to fly in and cough up the exorbitant greenfees and fly home than to play a round on their own course. How crazy is that?
Fast forward to the future. It’s been almost a year since the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. What a disaster. I couldn’t help but cry for the nation after seeing images of boats on top of broken homes and entire communities lost at sea. Lives destroyed forever. I cried for Japan. The devastated shores of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, sealed the fate of not only some 30 000 unsuspecting people, but in so doing, affected the livelihood of the whole country, including that of the entire Japanese golf industry.
How the earthquake affected golf in Japan
From a golfing perspective, 2011 was promising to be a cracking year for the nation. From an international perspective, the Japanese golf industry was poised for great things. At the International Golf Tourism Market held in Valencia, Spain, just months before nature changed it all, the local golf industry was at the starting line of something big. Leading up to the show, the Japanese market had been pretty much a closed door to the world, with over 2 340 courses shrouded in mystery. Thanks to the tourism branch deciding to open things up and attract swinging foreigners to its shores, in order to get cash floating back into a depressed global economy, all the talk was that Japan would be the break-out destination for 2011.
It was as if the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ was finding a way to shine through the economic depression and the so-dubbed ‘Lehman Shock’ of 2008, that seemed to suppress everything green. The long-term shrinking of the industry in Japan (and beyond) had forced the majority of Japanese clubs to change course – or die – and had thus set a bold new plan to market themselves as a divine golfing destination in 2011.
Then the earth shook and the wave came.
The sad truth is that the ripple effect resulting from the disaster has caused an immediate halt to any further golf development, affecting the entire country’s courses and people, regardless of geographical location relative to the three affected prefectures. The affected Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures have a total of 126 courses between them, making up approximately five percent of the courses in Japan. Although important, they are just a small part of the larger picture where everything is still connected. So a single mother who caddies part-time in Kyoto at a course that has seen zero effect from the radiation, earthquakes or tsunami, can’t pay her bills for the next six months as customers just aren’t showing up!
Golf is a way of life
In Japan, minimum salaries – regardless of experience or expertise – for the caddies and staff had already become the norm. Families who had invested their livelihood in this industry were already finding it almost impossible to survive. Since the disaster, all hopes of an economic golfing explosion have washed away these dreams and most front-line staff and caddies are now on part-time contracts with no guarantee of a salary should they not get a round. For many of them, including countless single mothers who caddie just to get by, 11 March was their last day of work.
Looking forward, with the gloom of a three-punch disaster – earthquake and tsunami followed by a nuclear incident – the hopes of international golf tourism taking hold here are gone for the short-to-mid term, at best. Regardless of the courses’ proximity to the disaster-struck areas, nuclear radiation just isn’t something any country’s image can bounce back from easily. Even the most die-hard golf fan won’t trade hair loss for a round of golf. Of course in a world where perception equals reality, a discerned pre-emptive effort from the Japanese tourism authorities (using the sensational media from the disaster) is needed if the place is to rise again. The good news is that it has a great example in Thailand. After its December 2004 earthquakes and tsunami, the tourism authorities kicked into high gear with an aggressive marketing campaign that emphasised the need for tourists to return to these devastated areas in order to ‘help’ them recover. It worked.
In an attempt to counter this disaster, many clubs all over Japan are helping out with fund-raising on the ground in the disaster-stricken areas, and every drop will hopefully make an ocean of difference in the very near future. The government is also focusing most of its economic efforts on getting its country back on track, which is good news for the marine life too.
The whaling programme in the Southern Ocean costs the Japanese taxpayer 1.2 billion yen every year (about $12 million) just in direct subsidies, and the government spends additional millions ‘recruiting’ countries into the International Whaling Commission, on marketing and promotion campaigns for whale meat.
The Japanese are resilient and hard-working people. With the aid of their government trading harpoons for a united humanitarian effort on land, everyone and everything in the area will survive, and I sincerely hope they all do.
