Three times a week in Japan, Anna Kei Fernandez is already at the course before the day fully wakes up.

The air is still. The fairways are perfectly kept. Everything runs on time, almost like clockwork. Players arrive early, routines are followed without question, and silence sits comfortably over the course.

But Anna is not holding a club when she steps onto the tee box. Instead, she is carrying four for her flight. In this part of the world, the practice is one caddie per flight.

It was not exactly the path she imagined when she left the Philippines at 18 with her Japanese mother.

Anna moved to Japan with a simple goal in mind: to get better. Not just as a golfer, but as a person. Staying home, she felt, would have been too easy.

“I knew that if I stayed there, I would stay too comfortable,” she said. “I wanted to grow — not just as a person, but also as a player.”

Japan offered something different. Structure. Discipline. A deeper golf culture. And for women’s golf in particular, opportunity.

But what she didn’t expect was that some of her biggest lessons would come from not playing at all.

Instead of immediately stepping into competition, Anna found herself working as a caddie.

The opportunity came through her school, which has partnerships with golf clubs in Ibaraki and Chiba. In return for access to courses, students also work as caddies. It is a system that blends training with responsibility.

At first, it felt like a shift she wasn’t fully prepared for.

“The first time I carried a bag instead of playing competitively, it was genuinely fun,” she said, smiling at the memory. “But it was completely different.”

As a player, everything is personal. Your swing, your score, your mistakes. But as a caddie, the game suddenly belongs to four other people at once.

Some players want constant numbers and guidance. Others barely speak. Some let frustration spill after a bad shot. Others go quiet and shut everything in.

Anna had to learn how to adjust to all of it.

“You start reading people,” she said. “Their body language, how they react, even how they walk after a bad shot. You pick up on everything.”

That, she realized, was something no range session could teach.

Golf, from the outside, looked technical. But from where she stood carrying bags across Japanese courses, it became something else entirely.

“It’s not just a sport where people hit a ball,” she said. “It’s a reflection of personality.”

Slowly, her understanding of the game changed. She wasn’t just watching swings anymore. She was watching people.

And without realizing it, she was learning how to become a better player herself.

Now, even when she plays alone, Anna finds herself thinking like a caddie. She talks through decisions quietly, almost as if someone is beside her.

“I talk to myself a lot when I walk the course,” she said. “It’s like I have a caddie with me, going through every shot.”

Life in Japan has reinforced that lesson in ways she didn’t expect.

Everything is structured. Trains arrive exactly on time. People move with awareness of others. On the course, etiquette is strict and routines are respected without exception.

Compared to the Philippines, it is a different rhythm entirely.

“In the Philippines, it’s more relaxed, more social,” she said. “There’s more pakikisama. It feels warmer, more open.”

Japan, on the other hand, is quieter. More precise. More contained.

Learning to exist between those two worlds took time.

Anna admits she had to adjust her personality — learning when to speak, when to listen, when to step back. Not to change who she is, but to understand where she is.

Over time, she found balance.

That balance now shows up in everything she does.

Her days are long. Early mornings at the course. Caddying rounds that can stretch for hours. After that, she sometimes plays nine holes on her own or spends time at the short game area. Then the gym, three to four times a week. Then schoolwork.

It rarely stops.

But she doesn’t describe it as overwhelming.

“I don’t want to waste my youth,” she said. “I want my days to feel full. Not easy — but full.”

Still, there are moments when distance hits harder than fatigue.

She misses home. She misses her parents and grandparents, and the things she used to enjoy back home — tennis, horseback riding, and singing before family and friends. 

“If anything feels heavy, it’s not the work,” she said quietly. “It’s being far from them.”

Those moments pass, but they stay with her.

So does everything she learns in the course.

Golf has become more than a sport. It has become a way of thinking.

“You can’t stay stuck on bad shots,” she said. “You move on. Next shot. Next hole. Next day.”

That mindset has slowly shaped how she sees everything now — mistakes, pressure, even life away from home.

Anna is still chasing the same dream she left the Philippines with: to become a professional golfer in Japan. The path is not easy, and she knows that better than anyone.

But she is no longer measuring progress only by swings or scores.

Some of it now comes from walking courses she is not playing, reading people she is not competing against, and learning the game from the other side of the bag.

And in that quiet space between carrying and competing, she is becoming something she didn’t expect — but now fully understands.