My first year running England’s only Japan Park Golf venue

Shields Gazette

An inside look at England’s first Japan Park Golf course, which started in South Tyneside in 2024. The free attraction, Sanddancer Community Japan Park Golf, was organised, and is run, by Ken ‘Zak' Smith, in South Tyneside. Ken brought the game, best described as a mixture of mini-golf and croquet, to South Shields after he was introduced to it when he lived in Scotland for more than 20 years. Starting on a trial basis in North Marine Park, it’s been a hit, and has raised thousands for local charities through voluntary donations. Ken registered the attraction with the Nippon Park Golf Association in Japan to make it the first official course in England.

Transcript

00:00It's really good, it's for charity and you can bring the kids, we're going to bring the

00:05grand bairns next week. You can just forget about things and you can just have a laugh.

00:11But I'm winning. We asked for permission to play this game, Japan Park Golf, on this

00:16council-owned course. It wasn't getting used by the bowling club anymore, so yes we allocated this

00:22on a trial basis. It's been so successful that we've got this full tank, so this is actually now

00:29the home of Japan Park Golf. Alex has been with his mum and dad, but I've not been so, but it's

00:36enjoyable, I like it, it's good. They've got the scooters with them, so they've been the rare skate

00:40park, so yeah they've had a good day so far. We are from Autism Abel and a group came last year,

00:47they loved it, yeah. At Men's Space it's specifically for men age 50 plus in South Tyneside, so I'm bringing

00:54men together to promote positive mental health and well-being. The rules of Japan Park Golf is the

00:59holes are no longer than 100 yards long, so this is a great little course for everybody just to

01:04get a taste of where it is. So it's slowly back at a whack. Oh we purchased a plaque here basically

01:13saying it's free of charge because people keep coming fast and saying how much is it? It's free to

01:18play and we're looking for donations. Like we've said it many times, if you haven't got any money,

01:23don't worry about it. Bring the kids and have a game. So still at the moment there's no other

01:27registered Japan Park Golf courses in England. We're a distributing charity, registered charity.

01:33We're a little bit like that because of the weather, but we've just decided to come down

01:36and give it a go you know. I look forward to a real idea, it's not no deal. I've had a bit of a downpour

01:43that's actually cleared everybody off the course. If I see the weather forecasting it's going to be

01:47growing a gale and it's hardly worth setting up because a lot of the board games will just blow down

01:53and the flags will go away. At the moment I'm here by myself so I'm looking for volunteers. How long

01:58to set up? Normally between an hour and a half and two hours to set up and take it all down again.

02:04So I was on Marketplace and I've seen a gentleman selling these fairground games,

02:09fair games, whatever you want and I went and bought a lot of them. Some of the youngsters who

02:13are a little bit too young to play Japan Park Golf, the youngsters can play this. My first visit here

02:18and I'll come back again if the bend doesn't come. What did the bend do? I hit the ball across the

02:25hole, he picked my ball up and threw it away. So I lost. Marvellous day, nice place to come.

02:32We've raised nearly £4,000 for charity now and over 4,000 people have played the game. Last year we raised

02:38£1,209 to the Sea Change Cafe who employ young adults with learning difficulties and autism. I'm glad

02:46to say that we've been granted £17,900 of lottery funding that will go to help to pay for a van

02:52and more equipment so I can take it to schools and anybody that would like us to bring it along and

02:56try. Yesterday I got another surprise as well we've just been granted £4,800 from Sport England so that

03:05again will help us progress and develop the game. I'm really grateful for the sponsorship that we're

03:11getting. We're now in a position where we can donate to volunteers some sort of expenses. Anybody that

03:19comes down we can give them up to £20 a day depending on how long they stay here. Unfortunately

03:25I haven't known, I've been around once, I'm going to go around the second time and have a second bash.

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