Kawana Hotel Golf Course (Fuji)

Overview: The Fuji Course at Kawana Hotel Golf Course occupies a rugged coastal plateau on Japan's Izu Peninsula, with views toward the Pacific and Mount Fuji. C.H. Alison used the volcanic land's ridges, ravines and changes of elevation to create a course whose character comes from movement through the landscape. Deep, high-faced bunkers and uneven approaches make the ground as important as the aerial carry, while the constant changes of scale give the course a distinctive rhythm from one hole to the next.

History: The Fuji Course opened in 1936 alongside the Kawana Hotel and quickly became one of Japan's best-known resort layouts. Alison designed the course after visiting Japan to work on other important projects, walking the Kawana property and studying how its natural contours could shape the routing. The hotel and golf complex survived the upheavals of the wartime era and later developed a long tournament tradition, including the annual Fuji-Sankei Ladies Classic.

Did You Know? Kawana's golf story contains two separate architectural chapters on the same coastal estate. The earlier Oshima Course was designed by Otani Komyo in 1928, while the Fuji Course followed in 1936 as a C.H. Alison design. Seeing the two courses together explains why Kawana is more than a single famous layout: it is a small history of Japanese golf development in one dramatic setting.