Oak Village Ichihara Golf Experience

So I got a chance to play at the Desmond Muirhead designed Oak Village Golf Club last week.  It’s indeed a beautiful course and has hosted several Japan tour events including the men’s PRGR Cup and ladies Tohato Open.  People had warned that it is very tough and expect to score much higher than one’s usual score. I did find it a rather hard course but not as hard as I expected. Lots of water, plenty of Out of Bounds, but the hardest aspect for me had to be the greens, none of which were flat at all but full of breaks and slopes up and down. When heading out to the first tee, a big sign was posted that the days greens were stimping out at 10 and rough measured at 55mm high.  Starting in the morning the wind was blowing hard and I had to stop my visor from flying off a couple of times. At the first tee they had a professional photographer hiding off to the side taking candid photos of all the players. At right is my picture. I guess I will use it as my new profile picture, haha. I showed Tourspecgolfer and he said the picture looked like I had a satisfied face after sticking it 3 feet from the pin on a par 3. Unfortunately I never stuck it that close. (^_^)

As I have always noted I’m not a long hitter, I’m usually the slowest swinger in my group. Either that or they all have big egos cause all three of my playing partners were hitting stiff flex while I was using my Crazy LY R2 in the driver and R flex in all my other clubs. I don’t know if its the equipment but my playing partners do not usually out drive me. We’re pretty much even and I sometimes even out drive them.. I guess it is the clubs. It’s the reason we all keep changing right? (^_^)  So not being a long hitter, I relish the short par 4’s and par 3 holes where I have a chance to birdie or par as much as the next guy. Oak Village’s par 3’s are all awesome and I’m going to post about a few of them here.

The first par 3 was the 165 yard no. 14  Loch Lomond hole (we started on the in course and played the whites).  There was a strong head wind so I decided to go with my Epon AF-901 25* with Crazy Black FW80.  This club replaces my 5 iron in the bag and with its longer length and ease of use I can usually take it about 180y but with the strong wind against I thought this would be the club to go with.  The hardest part for me in golf is to not overswing. I think I swung harder than usual worrying about the head wind and I ended up  pushing the shot ever so slightly into the back right of the green needing to make a down slope to up slope to breaking left 30 foot putt. Needless to say I tragically 3 putted the hole for a bogey. Nevertheless a beautiful hole with water almost all around. The Epon with Crazy shaft feels great and it got me safely on the green even with the strong wind.

I forgot to take pictures of the no. 4 Par3 called Roast Beef as I was too worried about the 207y distance from the white tee. This elevated green is a no frills distance par 3. No water but lots of wind. I pulled out the PRGR M3 Hit Tour with Crazy Black FW80 in it. Since getting this club, it has performed nothing less than straight and long and easy. It came through for me again as I was able to carry the ball 200y and two putt from 20 feet away for par!

Another very fun hole was Lake District, the no.5 hole you see in the picture above. There are two fairways on this hole, a safe longer fairway on the left or an island floating fairway surrounded by water in the middle. The white tees usually play at 342 yards but today the tee was moved up to 297y making for a very short par 4.  You could go the long and safe way with the fairway on the left or go for the island leaving a very short wedge approach to the green over a channel of water. Of course we all went for the island. The far edge of the island fairway was around 245y or so. I figured with my driver at around 235y I would be safe. Two of my playing partners went driver and another went 3 wood. The one with the 3 wood went first and hit the shot fat and ended up short in the water. Next up was a Mizuno MP600 with stiff shaft who ended up in the bunker on the far right of the island fairway. I went next with my Maruman LX460 and Crazy Longest Yard shaft and the drive went dead straight and stopped about 10 yards from the edge leaving me with about a 60y approach.  This Crazy shaft is always straight, to the point where I have gained confidence in using it where I would have used my Egg Spoon in the past.  This drive resulted in a birdie which as you can imagine I was very happy about.

The no.8 Par 3 is called Sangreal where the elevated white tee is 147y from the green. The green has multiple tiers as you can see from the picture and you definitely want to land on the tier where the pin is or you will have some serious slopes to contend with. I usually hit my 7 iron around 150y but with the higher tee grounds I went with the XXIO 8 iron.  I actually went slightly over and landed on the ridge/decline of the tier above the pin and rolled down to a 9 foot putt for birdie, which I proceeded to miss and settle for par.

Overall a fun day. I was happy to go at bogey pace on what was supposed to be a very difficult course. I always enjoy playing with my neighbors from Kiminomori (they are my regular partners) and having a tasty lunch at one of Japan’s nicer courses. It’s an added bonus getting to test out some nice gear along the way.