Arthur Hesketh Groom founded the Kobe Golf Club

Kobe Golf Club

The is Japan's first golf course, built on Mount Rokko in 1903 by English expatriate Arthur Hasketh Groom. The club began as a nine-hole course on May 24, 1903, but quickly expanded to eighteen the following year...

 on May 24, 1903 which was Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

's first ever golf club

Country club

A country club is a private club, often with a closed membership, that typically offers a variety of recreational sports facilities and is located in city outskirts or rural areas. Activities may include, for example, any of golf, tennis, swimming or polo...

. Groom came to Japan in 1868 and became a long-term resident of Kobe

Kobe

, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

. He was a known outdoorsman and mountaineer, and it is his appreciation for the local mountains

Mount Rokko

is a name of a group of mountains in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. This mountain is one of Hyōgo 50 mountains, Kinki 100 mountains, and also one of the 300 famous mountains in Japan.- Outline :...

 near Kobe and a lament that golf was unavailable in Japan that led him and a group of friends to found the Club.

See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations
  Anglo-Japanese relations
  The history of the relationship between Britain and Japan began in 1600 with the arrival of William Adams on the shores of Kyūshū at Usuki in Ōita Prefecture...
  
  
• List of people with surname Groom