When the Japan Open was last held at Koga Golf Club in Fukuoka in 2008 I finished third, still my best finish in Japan’s national open.

I shot 4-over that week.

The winner, Shingo Katayama, shot 1-under. Second was 3-over and then it went 4-over, 7-over. If you shot 13-over for the four rounds that week you finished inside the top 10.

When that happens, you know they’ve gone a little bit overboard when it comes to the set-up of the golf course.

There’s no question that the Japan Open is a difficult golf tournament to win.

Only two Aussies have ever won it – Craig Parry in 1997 and Paul Sheehan in 2006 – and certainly having a national Open on your resume is something that every golfer would want.

The set-up is very, very difficult – which you can understand – but over the years they have pushed the boundaries with the playability of these golf courses.

On a straight hole they’ll shape fairways so if you hit it straight you’ve always got the chance of running into rough.

The greens are very, very small and very, very firm and there has been some absolutely diabolical rough over the years.

Generally speaking Japan golf courses don’t have the length that you find in the US and they tend to use more traditional, older-style courses for Japan Opens. So that’s how they trick things up, they get the greens really firm and with a lot of roll-off.

If you were going to compare it to national Opens elsewhere in the world it would be more like a US Open set-up than an Australian Open set-up for example.

The golf course that we are playing this week is not a very long golf course. There are probably only three or four drivers to be hit throughout the round and from memory I believe Shingo Katayama didn’t even carry a driver on his way to winning in 2008.

Distance is not a big factor but they can trick it up with the greens more than anything else. Every green here pretty much runs off and they’ve shaved the surrounds into long rough down the bottom.

You’ve got so much pressure on your iron play around a course like this because you know that if you do miss the green then the chance of making par is very, very slim.

Even though I played quite well here 11 years ago I’d forgotten about the golf course. Even playing in the pro-am on Tuesday I reckon there were only half a dozen holes that I remembered.

The caddy that I had at the time was telling me about how I used to play the golf course but I couldn’t remember anything that he was trying to tell me.

The only thing that I can take out of that week is that I have played this golf course quite well.

After my win at the start of the year at the Token Homemate Cup I probably relaxed a little bit but I can feel that consistency coming back into my game.

I was top 10 a couple of weeks ago and tied for 12th last week at the Bridgestone Open and at a tournament like this it’s all about thinking clearly.

People are going to have bad holes so it’s just the way that you limit those bad holes as to the success you have through the week.

To win a Japan Open, a lot of things have to go your way. You’ve got to have that temperament, you’ve got to be on your game that whole week and there are things that have to happen for you to win.

It’s an amazing feat to win a Japan Open because very few people do it.

Realistically, I’m not going to be competitive in too many more Japan Opens so if I don’t win one in the next few years then my time’s probably passed.

It’s not really going to concern me one way or the other but it would be lovely to have a Japan Open on the resume before I retire.

Japan Open Round 1 tee times for Australasian players (AEDT)

9.24am David Bransdon, Sho Nagasawa, Shota Kishimoto

9.29am*              Adam Scott, Takumi Kanaya (a), Satoshi Kodaira

9.42am Brad Kennedy, Kazuki Ishiwata, In-Hoi Hur

9.51am Adam Bland, Yoshinori Fujimoto, Toyokazu Fujishima

10.09am              Anthony Quayle, Wen-Chong Liang, Ryuichi Kondo

1.57pm Brendan Jones, Koumei Oda, Gunn Charoenkul

2.01pm*              Jack Thompson (a), Yasuki Hiramoto, Dong-Kyu Jang

2.06pm Matthew Griffin, Kyung-Tae Kim, Ryutaro Nagano

2.10pm*              Denzel Ieremia, Naoto Nakanishi, Riito Mieno

* Starting on 10th tee