Phoenix Country Club

Pines, sea wind and a November tour stop.

Phoenix Country Club fills a strip of the Hyūga-nada coast on the edge of Miyazaki city, in south-east Kyushu, inside a black pine forest planted about 200 years ago to shelter the coast. It has hosted the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament since the first edition in 1974, and it is part of the Phoenix Seagaia Resort. Unlike many of Japan’s best-known clubs, it sells visitor tee times online, with a lower rate for resort guests. That makes it one of the few tournament courses in the country an overseas golfer can book without an introduction.

Phoenix Country Club green fees and tee times.

Visitors book online through the club’s visitor calendar, which offers golf only or golf with a night at the resort, or by phone on 0985-21-1301 and email at pcc27h@seagaia.com. The club says dates shown as full may still have starting slots, so it is worth asking. Rates change by date. On the Golf Jalan listing for 13 November 2026 the regular visitor rate with a caddie, on foot, was ¥37,100 all in, with a lower ¥29,600 rate for overnight guests; lunch is extra on both. Cancelling a group of two or fewer within 14 days costs ¥8,000 on weekdays and ¥16,000 at weekends, with New Year, Golden Week, Obon and the week after the tournament charged at the weekend rate. No handicap requirement is published.

The round, in perspective.

The club opened on 24 March 1971, designed by Gokichi and Sadakichi Ohashi, and has 27 holes in three nines: Takachiho, Sumiyoshi and Nichinan, 10,262 yards in all. The Dunlop Phoenix is played over the Sumiyoshi nine, which the club credits with many of the event’s dramatic finishes. The defining hazard is the forest itself: an 11-kilometre belt of more than a million black pines, about a kilometre deep, which lines every fairway and often blocks the aerial route. Deep greenside bunkers and wind off the Pacific do the rest. Takachiho is the straightest nine, with pines tight on both sides; Nichinan asks you to read the wind and choose clubs carefully. Greens are bentgrass, unusual in a warm region, and the fairways are Tifton in summer, overseeded with ryegrass for winter. In 2014 the resort was named a national training centre for golf.

Know before you go.

Format

Caddie and walking as standard

Carts

¥6,600 per two-seat cart (driving licence needed); none from autumn overseeding until the Dunlop Phoenix ends

Spikes

Soft spikes or spikeless only

Dress

Jacket to the clubhouse except June to September; no jeans, cargo trousers or T-shirts

Rental clubs

From ¥5,000

Range

¥450 for 36 balls

Make the trip work.

Most rounds here are walked, so budget for a full morning or afternoon on foot through the pines, with the customary lunch break at the turn charged separately. If anyone in your group needs a cart, avoid the autumn: carts are withdrawn from the overseeding (October on the club’s page, mid-September on Golf Jalan’s) until the Dunlop Phoenix ends, and the driver needs a full driving licence. Pack a jacket for the clubhouse outside the summer months. Metal spikes are not allowed. Societies of two or more groups can book competition plans that include a drink. The English-style clubhouse keeps a champions room of tournament memorabilia worth a look after the round.

Miyazaki Airport (KMI) has frequent domestic flights from Tokyo and Osaka, so most overseas visitors connect through one of those. The resort is about 25 minutes from the airport by car, and a direct bus runs at weekends and on public holidays. From JR Miyazaki Station it is about 25 minutes by taxi or local bus, or 30 minutes on the free resort shuttle. Inside the resort, the course is five minutes from the hotel by car or shuttle.

Where it is.

Somewhere to settle in.

Phoenix Seagaia Resort has three kinds of room: the Phoenix Seagaia Ocean Tower, the Seagaia Forest Condominiums and the Seagaia Forest Cottages. Staying on the resort unlocks the guest rate, and the resort sells golf-and-room packages through the same booking calendar. A free eight-seat shuttle car runs from the course back to the Ocean Tower between 15:30 and 18:30; book it at the club, and note that it does not carry golf bags. The resort also has its own hot-spring baths, Shōsenkyū, and a Banyan Tree Spa, booked separately.

Make a trip of it.

The resort’s second course, the Tom Watson Golf Course, is the only course to carry Watson’s name and offers night play, called Hoshizora Golf, and forward Enjoy Tees for beginners. Playing both gives you two very different days without leaving Seagaia. Away from the course, Miyazaki city is close by, and the coast road south leads to Aoshima, a small island shrine reached by footbridge, and on to the Nichinan coast that gives the club’s third nine its name.

Find your season.

Miyazaki’s mild winters make it one of Japan’s better cold-season golf bases, and the overseeded ryegrass keeps fairways green through winter. The 53rd Dunlop Phoenix runs from 19 to 22 November 2026, so expect the course to be closed to visitors around that week. The resort published its 2027 closure days in October 2026; check them before fixing January dates.