Nagato Yoichi

Golf Course Designer

He was born on January 19, 1941 in Miyazaki Prefecture. Former Course Advisor for the Japan Golf Tour Association. He has designed and supervised well-known tournament courses in Japan. He has also been involved the renovation of the courses in full scale at the Yomiuri Country Club, Naha Golf Club, The Country Club Japan, etc.He died in 2017.

There aren’t any clear-cut criteria to define the requirements of “world standard golf course.” So I thought about what the requirements are, and came to the conclusion that we have to take the future requirements into consideration.
Going forward, I believe that the rule will be polished, the technic and physical strength of players will be improved, and the golf equipment will be also developed.
What I regard as world standard is a course that transcends changing times and remains appealing to golfers. There’s no course in the world that is tough on pro golfers and kind to amateurs. The Royal Golf Club course is equally difficult for both pro golfers and amateurs. However, I believe that those difficulties can be overcome with practice, discipline, and a spirit of embracing challenge, so players will acquire the pleasures and the profoundness as well as the joy of taking on challenges while playing golf.
I call holes that force players to swing with all their strength as “Yin holes” and holes that let them think “Yang holes.” When designing this course, I spent lots of time to strike a balance between Yin and Yang, and there are some tricky holes in both types, however those holes are not only difficult but also strategically designed.
You will get some tips if you play Yin hole as well as check Yang hole next to each other. This is one of the tips called as “Read ahead”. I would like to tell you that the game situation depends on mental preparation even your technics and physical strengths are inferior to others in case of golf. I believe that these tips acquired one by one give you a great sense of accomplishment after the game. Using the resources available to me, therefore I incorporated as many elements as I possibly could when I design this golf course. This course is the culmination of my life’s work as a designer. I hope that you will try to play in a way that only you can in this course, where you shouldn’t think playing each hole one by one, but instead take them as though those are a continuity holes.

He passed away after the opening The Royal Golf Club.The text is based on an interview with him.

Suzuki Norio

Resident Pro, Ohayo Dairy Products Co., Ltd.

He was born in October 12, 1951 in Kagawa Prefecture. domestic and international track record as a pro-golfer. 16 wins on the Japan tour.
Formerly involved in tournament management as a Director of the Japan Golf Tour Organization. Engages in a wide range of activities, such as commentating on television, supervision of courses, and training young professionals and junior players.

In the world of sports in Japan, we often hear the expression “shin-gi-tai,” which refers to the three qualities of a martial artist: heart, technique, and physique. It’s an interesting concept because most athletes who struggle to succeed internationally despite possessing good technique and a good physique are lacking in “heart,” i.e. fighting spirit and mental toughness.
So what’s needed to develop this “heart?” The answer is decorum. In the context of golf, this means developing interest and respect by understanding the roots of the golf, learning about the golf’s history as well as its culture, which has been shaped and developed by many players over the years. In addition, a pure feeling of wanting to “go out into the world and grow oneself” leads to a powerful motivation to instill in oneself the discipline that one needs.
The Royal Golf Club will be a training facility for Japanese athletes who can succeed on the world stage. In addition to obviously being a highly-challenging course, the various facilities and activities will provide direct lessons to golfers. And what we have here can also be applied in various ways to athletes in other sports.
And even for ordinary people, this will be a place where they can obtain ideas about how to live in this era. They can enjoy playing the golf as an average golfer or watch the top athletes’ games as a fan. They will get a feeling for what “world standard” means, and these experiences should serve as a compass for enabling them to navigate their future lives.
We believe that Golf itself develops people. Through golf, The Royal Golf Club aims to become a venue for the development and regeneration of numerous people, not just in sports, but also in such fields as art and culture. And through my own career, I personally am determined to play a role this.

Hiroto Souichi

Representative Director, Reash Project
(General Incorporated Association), Chairman Hiroto’s method (sports seitai clinic)

Born June 13, 1961 in Tokyo. Attracting attention for the “REASH physical theory” that he developed independently and espouses. Provides support to top athletes in every area from total conditioning and general therapy. Member of the Japanese Olympic Committee training staff.

In terms of the way the body is used, there are basically two types of sport. One is dynamic sport, where the entire body is used in an instinctive way. The other is the type of sport where effort is made to use the whole body while it is in a stable condition, and the same action is accurately repeated. Golf is obviously a sport of the second type, and in fact, the ability of Japanese people in this area is thought to be extremely high.
Nowadays, the focus with training for athletes has shifted away from increasing muscular strength to enhancing the ability to control the body, and most emphasis is placed on improving flexibility, as doing so expands the range of motion of each body part, enabling the entire body to function as a single unit.
The Royal Golf Club has an ideal facility for this sort of cutting-edge training. This is because there are outstanding facilitiessuch as a longer course on which power alone is insufficient to deliver victory, a driving range, an approach range, a training room, and a medical treatment room. Given that the human body can only evolve within a specific environment, we are blessed with a fantastic environment here.
Here I offer a curriculum that enables you to learn the technic how to better control your body. If you are an athlete, this will give you an advantage when you take on the world’s top players. And if you are an amateur player, it will increase your body’s ability to recover, making you healthier in general.
By enabling you to experience this, I hope that you will come to know a new reality different from the one you knew before. This is my approach to offering something "world standard," and I am ready to provide people wishing to improve their best record whatever support I can.

Ikeda Motohiro

CEO, Nippon Kabaya Ohayo Holdings Inc.

Through all the things that stimulate the five senses, premonitions become expectations, self-belief transforms into confidence, and I am delighted to be able to bring you a special golf course like this. The course we offer you is, I believe, currently Japan’s longest and most beautiful course. The intellect of internationally-successful Japanese professionals has been poured into this course, which offers tough challenges to people who want to improve their game and gentleness to those who just want to enjoy playing. What both have in common is a landscape created by the combination of nature and the human hand. This landscape comprises lush green lawns, trees with handsome foliage, and flowers in full bloom. We will be as happy as we can be if as many people as possible can appreciate the beauty and dignity of Japan’s finest course at the tee ground of their choice while experiencing our strategic approach to course management.
Not only in golf, but in every activity in this world, there are people who will become the first place and people who won’t. Yet I feel that regardless of ability or results, the desire to continue to grow is a fundamental human need. With its various personalities, this course offers challenges and tests to suit the abilities and objectives of each individual, and we are confident that it will warmly embrace everyone who plays here and inspire them to continue striving to achieve personal growth.
Our goal is to bring a “World standard course” to all golf lovers. As we aim the Tokyo Olympics Games, that goal includes the grand vision to develop golfers who can succeed internationally. Our course leads the gofers to the international matches. This is our ideal vision, and on behalf of all our course and staff, I would like to take this opportunity to promise that we continue to offer world-class "absolute standards."