Hirono Golf Club

Charles Hugh Alison came to this site in Hyōgo on 10 January 1931, walked it, and finished the drawings in three days at the Oriental Hotel. Four founders had found the ground in the spring of 1930, and the club was registered on 16 May 1932. Building started on 20 February 1931, the eighteen holes were finished in May 1932, and Prince Asaka hit the first ball at the opening on 19 June 1932 in front of 180 competitors. It was requisitioned in 1944 and reopened in full on 19 June 1949. The Japan Open has been played here five times, from 1939 to Shingo Katayama's win in 2005, and Takumi Kanaya took the 100th Japan Amateur here in 2015.

Alison's routing goes across the ravines and ponds rather than around them. The par-three 5th is played over a large pond. Top 100 Golf Courses compares the par-three 13th to the 12th at Augusta National and calls it the more natural of the two. The 15th is a 565-yard par five that doglegs left around a hundred-foot black pine standing in the left half of the fairway, where a straight line would go. Martin Ebert worked on the course from January to September 2019, uncovering lines Alison had drawn. The pine is still there.