So are silly Internet gee-gaw dot.coms a sadder bubble than Japan's golf course bubble of the 80s? It is almost unbelievable that nearly $100 billion of bad debt is tied up in golf club memberships alone.
-- Nathan Newman
June 2, 2000 New York Times
TOKYO JOURNAL The Little White Ball That Put Japan in the Red By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Mitsuko Fujii, 64, playing golf at the Kasama Country Club on the outskirts of Toyko. About the financial fiasco that resulted from the golf-course craze, she says, "I think the banks were the most guilty party."
OKYO, June 1 -- During the economic boom in the 1980's, few things reflected this country's exploding wealth better than its sudden madness for golf.
In a nation of badly overcrowded cities and itsy-bitsy homes, wide, lush fairways were constructed at such a clip that by the end of the decade there were 2,400 courses, covering an area roughly triple the size of Tokyo itself. Lavish clubhouses included expensive artwork from masters like Chagall and Monet and solid gold fixtures. Bankers and promoters were financing memberships -- for up to $200,000 each -- as investments that they predicted would take off like a well-hit tee shot.
But the golf club investment craze here ran into trouble when Japan's economic bubble burst 10 years ago. Personal bankruptcies rose, the value of club memberships fell and many courses were immediately in a financial hole.
Now, at least 1,700 of the country's golf courses are either bankrupt or in financial trouble, according to industry estimates. And the bankers and other lenders who financed the courses and the individual memberships are desperately trying to contain one of the the economy's biggest problems.
"It is very difficult to exactly calculate the extent of the bad loan problem in this country," said Takehito Sasaki, managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Japan. "Some people estimate it at $1.2 trillion. Maybe 20 percent of that is related to the golf course crisis."
Included in that is an estimated $95 billion in non-interest-bearing security deposits on club memberships that are tied up in distressed clubs -- more than the gross domestic product of Ireland or Singapore or New Zealand.
more at http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/060200japan-golf.html