Japan's J-Sapo Cup returns July 18-19 at Phoenix Golf Club

Phoenix Golf Club in Ota, Gunma, will host the next J-Sapo Cup on July 18-19, bringing J-League supporter groups back into a footgolf format built around club identity, team scoring and bragging rights. Hayato Kobayashi, Japan’s footgolf representative, is once again fronting the event that has turned football fandom into a course-side rivalry.

Kobayashi launched J-Sapo Cup in July 2021 as a supporter-only competition, and by February 2025 the series had reached its 10th edition with about 1,000 total participants. The format is simple but pointed: entrants declare a favorite club, smaller groups can be folded into combined teams, and each side’s result is calculated from individual 18-hole scores with handicaps. The winning club takes home a rotating championship plate, or sharē, adding a traveling trophy element that has helped give the event a stronger identity than a one-off meetup.

The opening tournament set the tone for what J-Sapo Cup could become. Sixty supporters from 16 clubs entered the first edition, and 17 hole-in-ones were recorded despite rain. That mix of weather, noise and one-upmanship helped establish the event as a live test of club loyalty rather than a casual social round, with every putt carrying the same tribal energy supporters usually reserve for the terraces.

By 2024, supporter footgolf culture had expanded enough that active groups were documented around clubs including Tochigi SC, Omiya Ardija, Urawa Reds, Yokohama F. Marinos, JEF United Chiba, Shimizu S-Pulse, Kashima Antlers, Tokyo Verdy and Vegalta Sendai. That spread matters for footgolf’s growth in Japan: the sport is finding an entry point through football-adjacent communities that already understand club identity, travel, and organized rivalry. J-Sapo Cup gives those fans a way to compete with one another without leaving that emotional framework behind.

Kobayashi’s own path has helped make the event credible inside that crossover space. A former footballer turned footgolf player, he represented Japan at the 2023 FootGolf World Cup in Florida and won the FootGolf Asia Cup in 2018. He is also listed by the Japan FootGolf Association as both a Japan Tour player and one of the senior division leaders. The association, based in Tokorozawa, Saitama, describes footgolf as a new sport combining football and golf, and continues to promote Japan Tour events nationwide, including multiple 2026 stops in Gunma.