A 38-year-old woman from Sapporo died Thursday after falling into a hole while playing golf with her husband and their children at a golf course in Hokkaido, local police and firefighters said. Takae Gassho was walking down a fairway at the Le Petaw Golf Club in the town of Abira at around 2:20 p.m. when the ground caved in and she fell into a hole about 4 to 5 meters deep, according to police.
Gassho was playing golf with her 40-year-old husband and their two sons, aged 13 and 10, and was walking with the younger son when she fell into the hole, about 1.5 meters in diameter at the surface level and some 3.5 meters in diameter at the bottom. Local firefighters who reached Gassho found her lying face down on the bottom where there was water, which may have come from a nearby pond as a result of soil erosion. The golf facility, located some 20 kilometers from New Chitose Airport, is closed during the winter due to snow and had reopened last Saturday. One employee said, ‘‘There was no hole until today.’’
