Osamu Ueda

Osamu Ueda (1907 - 1978) was born in Ibaraki Prefecture in the north-eastern part of the Kanto region and attended university in Kyoto. Following a long and active career, Osamu Ueda is considered second only to Seiichi Inoue among Japanese course architects of the mid-twentieth century.

Inoue's reputation guaranteed that he tended to be given better sites to work with, but Ueda's courses still rank among the country's best. Ueda was especially inspired by the work of Donald Ross and Charles H. Alison, whose signature course in Japan at the legendary Hirono Club is not far from the Ueda designed Ono, and the latter course compares favorably with Alison's-indeed there are those who say it is the better of the two.

"Osamu Ueda in the West" and "Seiichi Inoue in the East" have become the leading golf design brands in Japan, such is the regard in which the two-course architects are held. By the end of his career, Ueda designed over fifty courses in Japan from Hokkaido in the north of the country to Kagoshima in the south.

Image(s) courtesy of Top 100 Golf Courses.com