GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
“Let’s never come here again because it will never be as much fun.”— Charlotte (Lost in Translation)
That quote could easily sum up how the golf team feels about last week’s trip to Japan. They were strangers in a strange land with only one familiar thing to remind them of the land they left: a college golf tournament.
The TOPY Cup, a U.S.-Japan intercollegiate golf tournament, was the reason they took the trip, and though they didn’t win the tournament, they came back to the United States. with something even better than a trophy: the memories of a week in a culture totally different from our own.
Pepperdine redshirt junior J.J. Wood said he experienced culture shock even when he was at the golf course.
“Their culture is 100 percent different,” Wood said. “On the tee, you bow instead of shake hands. No one in my group spoke English, so it was kind of lonely out on the course.”
The tournament itself consisted of four U.S. teams and seven Japanese schools all competing at the Tanagura Country Club in Fukushima, Japan.
Tohoku Fukushi, a Japanese student won the tournament with a total score of four-over par 868.
The tournament was beset by troubles throughout all three rounds as a typhoon pounded the coast nearby. The Waves battled the winds and rain to finish sixth in the 11-team field. Wood was Pepperdine’s highest finisher, carding rounds of 75, 70 and 73 to tie for sixth place overall.
His finish was the highest of his career and Wood said he expects to keep getting better and better.
“I played ok, it could’ve been better,” Wood said. “I could have putted better. I kind of grinded it out. It feels amazing (to place in the top 10), but there’s better stuff to come.”
Georgia State University topped the American teams, finishing second with a seven-over par score of 871.
Redshirt sophomore Michael Baird said he thinks the team played well but could have stepped up to be more of a factor in the tournament.
“As a whole we played all right,” Baird said, “but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
This season could shape up to be better than last year despite the graduation of All-American Michael Putnam, according to Wood.
“I think we’ll be better than last year even though we lost Putty,” Wood said. “We’ve all got a lot more experience now. We have six or seven guys who could be number one depending on who’s playing well at the time. It’s a pretty solid line up top to bottom.”
Golf was the farthest thing from their minds during the past two days of their stay in Japan.
The team took a bullet train from the country town of Fukushima to Tokyo and spent two days in Japan’s largest city. They took a tour of the city and enjoyed some recreation time in Tokyo’s famous club district.
Wood said that Japanese culture caught him off guard, especially walking around the city with some of the locals.
“Everyone’s half your size,” Wood said with a laugh. “Their culture is a lot more intense. Everyone sounds like they’re angry at you all the time.”
Wood and Baird both agreed that their week in Japan was one of the most enlightening experiences of their lives.
“Japan was a wonderful experience,” Wood said. “It was very pleasant.”
Baird added, “Japan was fun. It opened my eyes to other cultures. It was a lot different than what I expected and it’s totally different from America. But it was really good.”
09-15-2005