Japan reopens: the first Dormie group back after three years

Japan reopened to independent international tourists on 11th October 2022. We were on a flight from Heathrow on 14th October with eight clients who had originally been booked for spring 2020.

Two of the eight had been rebooked three times. One of them had asked me in August 2022, when the reopening was announced, to simply put him on whatever departure was first regardless of dates. His exact words: 'James, I don't care when. I just need to go.' He had turned 70 in the interim. He'd been waiting two years and nine months.

Kawana Hotel on the Izu Peninsula was the first night. The hotel had maintained the course to a standard that suggested they had simply refused to accept that it wouldn't be full of guests — the Fuji Course was in better condition than I'd seen it in 2019. When I said as much to the head greenkeeper through our interpreter, he said: 'We knew you would come back.'

The mountain was clear on day two. This matters: Fuji is visible from approximately a third of the round at Kawana and the presence or absence of the mountain changes the experience significantly. Clear skies, 18°C, a light westerly. The par-3 15th toward the mountain was photographed more times than any other moment on any trip I've run.

Hirono: unchanged. The staff who had looked after us in 2019 recognised our group. The caddie who had caddied for our most experienced golfer in 2019 was assigned to him again — deliberate, it turned out; the club had kept notes on who had caddied for whom during our previous visits.

On the Shinkansen to Kyoto, the 70-year-old client who had been rebooked three times came and sat next to me. He said: 'Thank you for not letting me cancel.' I said I hadn't given him the option. He said: 'I know. Thank you for that.'

We have run Japan every year since 2018, missing only 2020 and 2021. Japan is, for us, the itinerary that most consistently produces the response I got from that client on the train: gratitude for having been taken somewhere they hadn't been able to take themselves.