Golf and spa

---

There is a group of "golfers" at Invesco. I wouldn't so much call them golfers as golf enthusiasts. They absolutely love the game, and hosted one of their two annual outings a couple of weeks ago in Chiba. Chiba is about a 2 hour drive outside of Tokyo. You have to drive under Tokyo Bay to get to it. Back in the bubble days here, the government built one of the most expensive tunnels ever running underneath Tokyo Bay. Otherwise, you would have to drive the coast of the Bay which would take an extra hour. They've since paid for the tunnel, but they still charge each car about $70 to drive through it.

Chiba golf used to be HUGE. They have over 1000 courses where the plateaus of the city start meeting the rolling hills of some of the mountainous areas in Japan. It was easy to buy the land and build a course when memberships were going for $1 million. Now, they are around $40,000...there are no new courses going up now.

I left at 6:00 a.m. for an 8:45 tee time. This left me with plenty of time to view the Bay. There is an exit in the Tunnel that allows you to come to the surface in the middle of the Bay onto a building platform. From here, you can view Tokyo and Chiba on either side of you. It was too foggy that morning, so all I could see were ships waiting to dock in Tokyo Port.

I arrived at the range with plenty of time to hit practice balls. I hit into a net about 60 yards out. The greens were painfully slow and I'd say this is the biggest "golf" difference. There are other difference which have nothing to do with the game.

We teed off into a light drizzle on the first tee. They asked me to hit a ceremonial golf ball that had a ribbon flowing behind it to begin the "tournament". "Nice Shot Desu" was all I heard afterword. This seemed acceptable, so I pushed forward from here. A front side 42 was highlighted by nerves and a double bogey on 6. The greens got me a little. The distance was about 7,000 yards, so not much different there.

One of the largest differences is the Turn. All 12 of us stopped for lunch. It lasted 1.5 hours. I had three beers. They looked at me a little funny when I ordered the third, but they'd been looking at me funny since I arrived, so I didn't assign too much importance to it. The three beers settled me down, and I fired a 37 on the back for a 79 overall. Not bad for a 6.5 hour round.

The locker room is a unique experience at a Japanese Country Club. I'm pretty sure that most of them enjoy the after-round activities more than the golf. So you have to shower after you've been doing something since 6:00 a.m. which I did of course. But the shower here was a square room. On the outside walls of the shower were spiggots and buckets. The inside of the square is a big 20 person hot tub. This is one big bathing room, and as such, no clothing is worn into the bathing room. I took my seat on a bucket (you apparently sit down to shower). After bathing, many of the other guys from work retired to the spa. I have my limits, and nude male bathing is one of them. I passed on the tub and went to get more beers to try and shake the images. This worked and by the time they came out of the "showers", I had downed four more Asahi's.

The final act of the day is handing out prizes. I took low gross for which I received a sake set. I also had long drive. I got bath salt for that. They do love their baths. The average handicap for the other 11 players was 28. one guy shot an 87. None of the rest broke 100.

I had a few more beers during the ceremony, so I slept pretty well on the 2.5 hour drive home. I arrived home at 6:45, about 13 hours from when I left. Maureen was thrilled. I doubt I'll be doing a whole lot of playing, but it was a unique, enjoyable experience.

---