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Golf
Japanese hit Canada Cup headlines on Olympic course
Dermot Gilleece recalls the spectacular victory of the Japanese in the 1957 tournament
Characterised by its challenging narrow fairways, Kasumigaseki –venue for the recent Olympics tournament -- played host to the first major international golf event to be held in Asia, when the Canada Cup, later the World Cup of Golf, was staged there in 1957.
The 5ft. 4in Torakichi Nakamura in driving action
For the superstitious among us, golf in the Tokyo Olympics carried good and bad omens for our participating players. As we have already discovered from the efforts of Ireland’s men and women practitioners, the good stuff remains some way down the line, hopefully in the Paris Olympics of 2024.
The east course at Kasumigaseki gained considerable pre-Olympic popularity through its association with Hideki Matsuyama, who became the first Japanese winner of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National last April. I had learned of a previous distinction for the venue, however, as the author of Harry Bradshaw’s biography, 34 years ago.
As it happened, Kasumigaseki GC played host to the first major international golf event to be held in Asia, when the Canada Cup, later the World Cup of Golf, was staged there in 1957. Sadly, from an Irish standpoint, it also became the only occasion when our participating competitors were unable to complete their playing commitments. Cup at Wentworth in Surrey. Given their fine effort in finishing in a share of 10th place behind the legendary American duo of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, it was entirely predictable that Himself and The Brad were retained for the long trip to Tokyo the following year. The Japan staging was described by the celebrated American scribe, Herbert Warren Wind of Sports Illustrated, as ‘the most important international sports event ever held in the Far East.’ We’re told that the Kasumigaseki greens were covered in bales
The Japanese pair of Torakichi Nakamura, standing only 5ft 4ins, and Koichi Ono revelled in the conditions and won the 1957 Canada Cup by nine strokes from Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret, representing the US
The east course at Kasumigaseki gained considerable pre-Olympic popularity through its association with Hideki Matsuyama, who became the first Japanese winner of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National last April. Harry Bradshaw, after rounds of 74 and 75 in the 1957 Canada Cup, was taken to hospital with severe nose-bleeds and withdrew from the competition.
of straw each night so as to protect the grass for weeks leading into the event. And the surfaces were to become a key factor in a remarkable victory by the home side.
Comprised of coarse, Korai grass which, apparently, grew in every direction, the greens were compared by Wind to the ‘extra rough beard featured in shaving cream commercials.’ The Japanese pair of Torakichi Nakamura, standing only 5ft 4ins, and Koichi Ono revelled in the conditions and won by nine strokes from Snead and Jimmy Demaret, representing the US. South Africa’s Gary Player, who was then only 21, was moved to remark somewhat expansively afterwards: ‘I never saw such putting in my life. Between them, they sank 10 putts of 10 to 20 feet. If Bobby Locke [his fellow countryman noted as a great putter] thinks he can putt, he should see these Japanese.’ It was this experience which prompted Snead to deliver one of the great lines of tournament golf. When asked, on his return to the US, why the Japanese were such good putters, Snead replied: ‘Because they have yet to discover how difficult it is.’
As for his own putting, he tried just about every aid offered him, including prayer. Which probably explains his enthusiasm for a visit to the Vatican suggested by his manager, Fred Corcoran, on a trip to Europe around that time. ‘Coming home, we made the Grand Tour, stopping off in Rome for what Sam called an audition with the late Pope John (XXIII),’ Corcoran recalled. ‘I suggested facetiously that Sam might bring his putter along and have it blessed. I argued that a papal blessing might help steer in some of those six-foot, side-hill putts.
‘Sam was impressed. I remember we were met in the vestry of St Peter's by a monsignor whose eyebrows flitted up into his tonsure when Snead checked in with his clubs. But he turned out to be a 100-shooter himself and he immediately went to confession to Sam about his own putting problems. Sam sighed, picked up his clubs and headed back to the car. 'If you're this close to the Pope and you can't putt,' he drawled over his shoulder, 'he ain't gonna be able to do anything for me.’
And what of the Irish in Tokyo? Sadly, it was the only time in a distinguished history in the event that O’Connor and The Brad were effectively out of contention from the halfway stage. That was when Bradshaw, after rounds of 74 and 75, was taken to hospital with severe nosebleeds and withdrew from the competition. O’Connor, however, completed the 72 holes with rounds of 73,72,74,76 and Ireland were placed last of the 30 competing countries. That was the bad news. Considerably better news would be forthcoming in Mexico City, 13 months later.
In reviewing the 1958 Canada Cup, the great Henry Longhurst wrote a fascinating piece in The Sunday Times. He reported: ‘The journey so far afield as Mexico, leaves many impressions on the mind, not all of them related to the golf, which was strictly the object of the visit. The first is that, having expended the whole of this space a year or so ago to lifting my hat off to Harry Bradshaw, I cannot refrain from briefly doing so again.'
‘Ireland brought the Canada Cup home and Christy O’Connor played a splendid supporting role, but Harry was the hero. I will not harp further on the difficulties of playing golf at high altitudes, but it will hardly be disputed that weight for weight and age for age, they progressively increase. On a course longer than any British championship links and with a strict par of 72, Bradshaw had rounds of 70,70,76 and 70 – and he is 45 and carries 15 stone.'
When others were sinking exhausted in the locker room, he was ready with affable conversation and, as for the fears of dysentery – ‘I drink the water out of the tap. If you’re going to get it, you’ll get it anyway.’
Longhurst went on: ‘A year ago in Tokyo, he had to retire from this tournament through persistent nose-bleeding. I saw him standing cheerfully in the hotel entrance as we left. Only three or four people, of whom I was not one, knew that in the intervening days, he had been so near to death that a priest had been called to administer the Last Rites. My colleagues are due shortly to elect a Golfer of the Year who ‘has done most for British golf’. Had they seen him in Mexico, they would look no further than Harry Bradshaw – and never mind what part of Ireland he comes from!’
The Association of Golf Writers took Longhurst’s advice. The Brad was awarded the AGW Trophy for 1958, polling 36 votes against 25 for Peter Alliss and 21 for David Thomas, who had been runner-up to Peter Thomson in the Open Championship at Royal Lytham, earlier that year. Dear Henry had more than compensated for the unkindness of describing The Brad’s swing as ‘agricultural’, years earlier.
Back in Tokyo in October 1957, the Japanese trailed the US by five strokes after the opening round, but went on to delight a partisan gallery of almost 12,000 over the succeeding days. Their dominance as a pair of former caddies, gained further emphasis when Nakamura won the individual International Trophy by a crushing seven strokes from Player, Snead and Welshman, Thomas, in a share of second place. As Wind reported: ‘Over the four days, their play from tee to green was steady rather than exceptional. Neither is a stylist, or close to it. On his backswing, Nakamura lurches his whole body way around to the right, thrusting his hands into the air as if to grab the rope of a bell in a belfry. Ono has a very flat backswing on which he loosely flips the club open and shut with his wrists. Their driving, while short, was at least as straight and serviceable as any of their rivals’. Their iron play was far from brilliant but it was good.’ You will gather that superlatives were used quite sparingly back then.
Incidentally, the entire tournament was televised in Japan and covered widely in newspapers. All of which did much to promote a boom in Japanese golf, though it still took considerably longer than most observers would have anticipated.
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