If you're gong to China make time for golf

You'll find a sea of smiling faces

NB Before reading today’s post I recommend you read my brief post two days ago first if you haven’t done so already. It explains the background to my article below, a longer version of which appeared in the Financial Times in November 2006.

A few weeks ago a group of young Chinese women wearing identical red uniforms were walking across the countryside near Beijing. A bitter north wind whipped across from the mountains in the distance and they looked very cold as they listened to a man in white overalls giving them instructions. Two decades ago they would probably have been Party members receiving education.

But far from being indoctrinated with the teachings of Mao, the rites they were learning were those of a very capitalist recreation. At Beijing Willow Golf Club, near the Summer Palace, caddies train for three months before they are allowed out on their own with golfers. Few clubs in the world are as fastidious as this about the caddies they provide for visitors.

This careful approach, backed by lots of hard cash, is typically Chinese. The way Chinese business people are taking to the game and the rate at which new courses like Willow, forty minutes from downtown Beijing, are being built, can surely only be good for the game in the long term.

Willow opened four years ago and its first nine holes are floodlit, allowing night golf between May and October. After you play these, your caddy drives you across a bridge over an eight-lane highway to the more scenic and peaceful back nine. Four hundred members pay an annual subscription of £30,000 for a well-maintained 18 hole course with another nine holes planned. The clubhouse is service orientated and comfortable.

I played Willow as part of a journey of discovery about how golf is developing in China where two hundred courses have been built in the past decade. I began at one of the oldest, Fanling, which was founded as the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club in 1889. Little has changed there since Britain’s handover of its former colony to Chinese rule in 1997. Only when you cross into the Chinese mainland does the new interest in golf become apparent.

Entering Shenzhen the first advertisement you see is one promoting the ten course complex at Mission Hills with the strap line “World’s No One”. Mission Hills is proud to be recognised by The Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest golf complex and everything there is vast, from my suite overlooking two floodlit courses to the ballroom in which 3,000 can sit down to dinner.

The courses were all designed, in name anyway, by leading golfers including Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Annika Sorenstam. At the opening of each one the designer was invited to perform karaoke at the celebration dinner. Only Singh refused, giving rise to the nickname “Vijay No Sing”.

The countryside is hilly with mature trees, but using fertile terrain for a land-hungry sport is controversial. Both the environmental lobby and the government disapprove, and the latter discourages officials from playing. This attitude, coupled with the cost of the game, means that it mainly attracts wealthy business people, a category whose ranks are swelling on the back of the fast growing economy.

Golf on the scale of Mission Hills only pays through property development and 2,000 villas are sold or under construction. I was driven by cart past uniformed saluting sentries to a 9,000 square feet show house containing a cinema, mahjong room, pool table and lift. Not having brought along the $300,000 in cash needed for the deposit, I didn’t join the throng of buyers next morning when 160 building plots were released at prices of up to $3m each.

Instead I enjoyed a round on the Olazabal course, beautifully situated in the mountains. Our four included my host, CEO Charles Cheung, Singapore’s Consul General in Hong Kong and the Vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, making what’s probably a typical weekend four ball here.

Our progress was aided by the elaborate hand signals of sentries at every crossing point. The pleasure of the round was enhanced by Lud, my elite gold class caddy, in her uniform of baggy red trousers, gold jacket and broad brimmed white helmet, who rode perilously on the back of the caddy cart as we hurtled from greens to the next tee.

From Mission Hills, I flew to Shanghai. There I met Yongie Fu, the chairman of Binhai Golf, who gave me a Power Point analysis of the sixteen courses around Shanghai. His driver then whisked me past Pudong to Binhai, a Peter Thompson designed course on flat countryside. It was in good condition with firm true greens. A charming 21 year old caddy described each hole as we stood on the tee, rather in the manner of a waitress at Prestwick running through the choice of starters for lunch.

Binhai’s facilities are aimed at corporate events of which, given Shanghai’s expansion, there are plenty. Weddings are also held there, an arrangement that might catch on as it enables golf mad grooms to abandon their brides and guests in favour of golf as soon as the ceremony is over.

From Shanghai I flew to Beijing and headed to the Beijing Links Club. It’s not actually a links but in a built up area miles from the sea. In the VIP locker room a smiling male attendant, with whom I shared not a syllable of common language, ministered to my every need, carefully folding up my discarded boxers and drying my feet when I came out of the shower, a practice which I haven’t found widely followed elsewhere.

My next stop. Beijing CBD International, was a smart layout close to the centre of town, in remarkable condition for a course that’s only been open a year. Its manager, Connie Jiang studied hospitality management at Thames Valley University in London. She told me the staff liked western visitors because they treated them well. This club has 500 members paying $65,000 a year each. Houses are being built around the course and those facing north and south, thereby enjoying good feng shui, sold quickly.

In advance I had deliberately not sought special treatment at CBD, simply faxing a request for a tee time in order to test how unsolicited visitors were treated. On arrival I was greeted by two smiling receptionists in an entrance hall that resembled that of a five star hotel. They and the course starter, who doubles as caddy mistress, were as welcoming as they could be.

CBD is controlled by property tycoon La Hao, who also owns Beijing Hua International, the venue for the 2006 Volvo China Open which took place while I was in town. Mel Pyatt, who runs Volvo’s event management operations worldwide and has championed the growth of professional competition here, invited me to attend.

It was the 12th China Open and the programme featured descriptions of the 12th Open at Prestwick in 1872 and the 12th US Open at Onwentsia in 1906. Although the galleries at the China Open were not huge, the corporate hospitality marquee behind the eighteenth had much the same look and feel as its equivalent in the UK. In the evening I attended the dinner at which Pyatt announced higher prize money for the following year and Volvo’s commitment to support the event for the next decade.

Even if it’s too far from Europe or America to become a regular holiday destination, visitors to the country who enjoy the game should make a point of experiencing the sea of smiling faces which is my abiding memory of a remarkable fortnight’s golf and one I hope to refresh before long.

Aftterword

Looking back at the above conclusions I fear that my optimism about both the direction of travel in China and the progress of golf there has turned out to be misplaced. Nevertheless I still believe that the game should be nurtured there if possible and I look forward to playing there again sometime even though I have not had a chance to do so since Covid.

ENDS