Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

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RP: Another project that you got going in the camp, actually kind of an interesting landscaping project, too, was the development of the golf course in the camp. Can you tell us how that all began?

HN: Well, you've heard of Mr. Hori. He was a golfer, and his son was a golfer. And there were some older people that were golfers. And they wanted to build a, either a driving range or a little golf course to play golf. And it just so happened that it started right around our, our nursery, so we got involved. [Laughs] And actually, Joe Kishi was not a golfer but he, he really, he liked golfing and he became a good, good golfer when he came back. He got the franchise from the City of L.A. for the golf carts, for the, for the L.A., L.A. city golf courses. Yeah, he was able to get that golf cart business which was, I guess, was... and he had a, he opened up a wholesale nursery up... he had a Allied Nursery Exchange.

RP: This is after camp?

HN: Huh?

RP: After camp?

HN: After, this is after camp. And then, but the golf, the golf business was a very, I don't know what you call it, lucrative. It was... of course, he had, he had the contract from the city to furnish all of the golf carts for the city, city courses.

RP: So it all started at Manzanar for him.

HN: For him, yeah. Yeah.

RP: So did you guys volunteer to help Mr. Hori set up a course or...

HN: Yeah, yeah. And then in turn he, he taught us golf. We took lessons from him. Yeah.

RP: Did he supply you with his, with golf clubs and equipment, or did you...

HN: No, but he told us how, how we can get, what kind of equipment we needed. And we ordered all that stuff through Sears. And I think we used to buy golf balls from him, or eah, I think he used to buy, get golf balls from some, whatever, and he would supply us. We'd pay for the golf balls, but he would supply us with golf balls. Because we used to use a lot of, lose a lot of golf balls. They go over the fence and we couldn't go after 'em.

RP: You'd be going outside the camp.

HN: Yeah.

RP: So tell us how the course was constructed and built.

HN: Well, the space that was, was, that we needed was all on the perimeter, inside perimeter of the camp, which was plenty of space there. But it was just in, along the, the western, western edge of camp between the barrack, between the barracks and the barbed wire fence. So it was along that western edge side and then returning back.

RP: Southwest corner?

HN: Yeah. And we'd come back on the, on the southern side and then back across there was a lot of, a corridor between the guayule lath house and our lath house. So I think the ninth hole was from the southern line over back into, to the, between the two lath houses.

RP: That was originally a nine hole course?

HN: Yeah. First hole started from that point towards the southern fence line over, was that Bear's Creek? Yeah, over Bear's Creek. Then to the, to the south, southwest corner and on the western, western corridor of camp, then returning back. Because it was four holes, I think we had four holes going and five holes coming back. Yeah, nine holes, yeah. It was just sand, sand greens. You sift the sand, oil it, and before you put you had to roll it.

RP: Where did you get the oil from?

HN: It was out of, from the, the auto, the truck, what do you call it, the pool.

RP: Motor pool?

HN: Motor pool.

RP: So they give you their, their spent oil?

HN: That's, the used oil. Used oil, yeah. There was plenty of it.

RP: So you had to, to remove a lot of shrubs, didn't you? Didn't you have to clear off the...

HN: It was, it was, yeah... there was some removal, but it was pretty much cleared because, like I said before, the whole area had to be cleared for, when they built the camp. I think the whole area was just bulldozed and cleared.

RP: Did you have any leveling equipment or grading equipment that was used or was it just your hand labor?

HN: Just your natural terrain. Yeah. The only part that we worked on was, was the sand greens itself and the starting point, which was just an area.

RP: Was it relatively just a flat course or was there any...

HN: No, just flat.

RP: And what would a typical hole be in terms of yards?

HN: I think the shortest, shortest was probably around 80-90 yards. Maybe a longer one as long as 150 yards. That's about it. We had not much use for a, for a driver. It's mostly from a nine iron to a, maybe we used a two iron.