Room to swing in the Miyagi hills, 27 holes among the pines

Osaki Golf Club Sanbongi Course spreads across gently rolling hill country in Osaki, northern Miyagi Prefecture. It opened in July 1975 as Sendai Golf & Country Club, designed by Genjiro Suzuki, and was relaunched under its current name in 2010. Three nines, West, South and East, each par 36, can be combined into a generous par 108 layout, with wide fairways framed by natural pines, broad views and large, American-style bunkers guarding bent sand greens that average around 900 square metres.

Wide fairways and big greens invite you to swing freely, while the bunkers keep you honest.

Players praise the strategic routing and good upkeep, and a 280-yard, 20-bay range makes it easy to warm up properly. The club is open year-round, with Mondays given over to self-play. It is about 20 minutes by car from Furukawa IC on the Tohoku Expressway, and Furukawa Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen is roughly 13 km away, so it pairs well with a stay in Sendai, about 45 minutes south. Osaki city is also home to the hot-spring town of Naruko Onsen, known for its gorge and autumn colours, making this an easy round to fold into a northern Tohoku road trip.