茶臼山ゴルフ倶楽部

茶臼山ゴルフ倶楽部 sits on the highlands straddling the border of Nagano and Aichi prefectures, in the remote Minami-Shinshu region of southern Nagano. Urigiwa-mura — one of Japan's smallest villages — occupies a plateau near the Chausuyama highlands, an area better known for skiing and autumn foliage than for golf. At elevations this high, the air is noticeably thin and cool even in midsummer, conditions that affect ball flight and give the course a distinctly alpine personality. The surrounding forests of larch and Japanese oak shift dramatically through the seasons.

The course takes its name from Mount Chausu, the gentle highland dome that defines the local skyline and lends the whole area a quiet, removed quality. This part of Shinshu has resisted overdevelopment, and the golf club reflects that sensibility — a place where the journey itself, winding up through mountain roads, is part of arriving.

For golfers based in Nagoya or Hamamatsu, the Minami-Shinshu highlands offer a genuine escape from lowland summer heat, and courses in this corridor tend to reward patience over power, with mountain topography turning straightforward-looking holes into more complex propositions than any yardage figure suggests.