Over the last few years I’ve been to watch about 25 different sports but the one major omission is probably golf. I don’t really have anything against it but it’s just not something I’ve ever really got into or watched for more than a few minutes here and there. Also, I’ve never conducted any business meetings on golf courses which, if I’m to believe TV and film, seems to be quite common.

When I was a kid, I would often do some putting in our back garden or play the likes of mini-golf and crazy golf at various parks from time to time. That was a long time ago, and having never seen such a place in Japan I wasn’t really expecting to partake in any golf event of sorts. However, that changed a few months ago when a friend suggested going to a driving range.

About once a year, I meet up with friends James and George for some kind of activity. Past ones have included bouldering, rainbow ramen, the cafe located between tracks, train curry and watching baseball. The latest addition to that list occurred in October last year when we met up one Friday evening at Fuji Golf Center in Koto ward. I arrived a little early so took a walk round the place to take a peek inside the two-storey range to see what lay ahead of me.

To be fair, the cost of playing was probably less than I had anticipated as it cost us just under 6000 yen in total for two lanes as well as the rental of three different clubs (320 each) and a fee for lighting and something else.

Nearly all the other players were congregated at the end closest to the reception so we decided to go down the far end which was empty thereby allowing us to chat a bit too without worrying about annoying others. I can’t deny the decision to go down that end was also due to one of the lanes being number 69. Immature and puerile for men of our age!

James had experience of such places so gave us a few pointers on grip, stance and swing which George and I obviously didn’t listen to too much!

It really is a good feeling when you connect well with the ball but I reckon I must’ve swung the irons and clubs nearly twice as many times as the balls I actually hit! There were some reasonably impressive shots in my arsenal but also many terrible ones which barely travelled more than ten metres!

Looking like a pro!

My stance was quite varied with a mix of good, bad and absolutely awful! In the picture below it looks like I’m smashing the iron in anger or chopping down a tree with an axe rather than using a golf club!

Thankfully, the other novice George wasn’t any better than me in terms of style not that we were competing at all!!

Screens reveal how many balls you’ve hit, how many you have left and you can even adjust the height of the tee. That may be common knowledge to many reading this but I had no idea until about half way through our session!

We only played for just under an hour (around 150 balls) but it felt enough for all of us and we decided to head off for some dinner. My first time at such a golf driving range was good fun, and indeed I would go again but I think when it comes to practising my swing I much prefer the (baseball) batting cages.

Don’t mess with this trio!!

• Fuji Golf Center is located at 6-2-6 Kiba, Koto-ku, Tokyo. It’s open every day from 5:30 am till 10:30 pm.

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