The island of Kyushu is located on the west side of Japan and is home to the Miyazaki Prefecture. This is renowned in Japan for lovely views of the ocean and nearby mountains and is a great place to play golf.
Arguably the top golf course in this region of Japan is Phoenix Golf Club. To reach Phoenix Golf Club for visitors outside of Japan, you must first fly to Tokyo or Osaka and catch a connecting flight to the city of Miyazaki. You can also fly from Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong, which opens the opportunity for an unforgettable multi-centre golf holiday in Asia.
Phoenix Country Club has long been a fixture on the Japanese Golf Tour and first hosted the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament in 1974, an event which continues to this day. Players including Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Ernie Els and Brooks Koepka have all won at Phoenix Country Club, so you will be following in the footsteps of legends.
The golf course features three sets of 9 holes to make 27 holes of golf but most people choose to combine the Takachiho and Sumiyoshi courses to make their 18 holes of golf.
Using these two sets of nine holes, Phoenix Country Club plays to just under 7,000 yards from the back tees but there is a choice of four tee positions on each hole. While the ocean cannot be directly seen from any of the holes, you can hear the waves crashing onto the shore as you play your way around this splendid golf course.
You will not find any great changes in elevation throughout the course and despite being close to the ocean, Phoenix Country Club plays more like a parkland course than a links course. You will find very little in the way of water when playing the two sets of nine holes highlighted above save for two par-3 holes which require a tee shot over water.
However, what you will find is very good bunkering and the bunkers have been renovated in partnership with Troon Golf and they are superb. Hole 4 on the Sumiyoshi Course is a great example and this par-4 features four excellent, strategically placed fairway bunkers and three bunkers protecting the green.
The Japanese pine trees which line many of the fairways are well looked after by the staff and add to the overall beauty of Phoenix Country Club.
The clubhouse boasts an Obi Japanese cedar interior which is very striking and certainly adds to the overall ambience of the golf club. Complete with a restaurant, golf shop and practice facilities, Phoenix Country Club is a fantastic place for a round of golf in Japan.