Fine China: The golf boom hits, and it's a future dynasty

Golf Digest, June, 2001 by Thomas L. Friedman

There was a time 20 years ago, when China was first opening up to the world, that if you mentioned "coastal China," what came to mind was a chain of trading cities, bursting with energy and stretching from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Now when you say "coastal China," you are also referring to some of the best links, and inland, courses in Asia. If 20 years ago the only reason to go to China was for the Great Wall, now it's also for the Great Golf. Let me be blunt: If you're a golfer and you visit China in the summer and you don't bring your sticks--and I'm not talkin' chopsticks--you're crazy.

After playing China's spectacular Golden Pebble Beach Golf & Country Club, located on a rocky coastline outside Dalian, in northeastern China, I flew home to Washington, D.C., and described it this way to my regular foursome: "Guys, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I've found a links course more beautiful than Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula. The green fees are only $80, you don't need a tee time and the caddies are all women. The bad news is, it's a 20-hour flight from here."

Seriously, if the half-dozen holes at China's Golden Pebble that weave along the Yellow Sea--including a dramatic downhill par 3 perched on a cliff, where losing your balance could cost you your life--were in America, the green fees would be $300.

Forget the Ming Dynasty; China's on the verge of a Ping Dynasty. Since 1983, more than 100 courses have been built in China--many of them worth the trip across the Pacific. Golden Pebble is just one of them. Not all of them, however, are as inexpensive to play. Green fees at some clubs have reached $100 or more, and it's not uncommon to spend $150 for a round in Hong Kong. The golf boom in China began when Hong Kong golf fanatics ran out of space in their cramped little British colony, so they hired Arnold Palmer to design a course just across the border, near China's special economic zone of Zhuhai. This became the Chung Shan Hot Spring Golf Club. A few years later, they hired Jack Nicklaus to design a sister course.

"The Palmer course twists through large gum trees, lily-padded ponds and ivy-covered embankments," says Peter Williams, the former director of golf at Chung Shan, while "the Nicklaus course is cut higher into the mountains. The conditioning of both courses is superb. Such is the availability of hard-working laborers here--the staff comprises nearly 1,000 people--that any weed daring to sprout a leaf is committing instant suicide. Bunkers are kept trimmed by hand."

By the way, adds Williams, "I have been to Golden Pebble Beach, and you are right, it's also a great spot. I rollerbladed from the course back to downtown Dalian. I won't describe to you the reaction of the local Chinese farmers to seeing a 6-foot-4 golf-pro-monster on wheels!"

Catering to investors, tourists

Like emperors of old, Palmer, Nicklaus and Nick Faldo have each left their footprints around the Middle Kingdom, which is fast becoming the Emerald Kingdom. Despite the occasional flare-ups in U.S.-China relations, every major east-coast city now feels it must have a course to cater to foreign investors and tourists, as do major interior cities, from Beijing to Guiyang. There are about 150 courses to choose from, and more under construction. "Whereas golf was once a forbidden pastime, it is now a virtual requirement for any Chinese town hoping to assert its economic viability," says Williams.

In Beijing today, being a member of the right golf club is becoming the same status symbol for the Communist elite as it is for capitalists in the West. "If you want to get access to someone in the Politburo today, just pass the word that you're a member of a great golf club in the states," says Bob Theleen, an avid golfer and the chairman of ChinaVest, a major venture-capital firm operating in China. "Mention Olympic or Congressional and watch the doors open."

Along with all the new courses being built are some old classics, like The Hong Kong Golf Club (which used to be called Royal Hong Kong in British days, but since Hong Kong's handover to China is now jokingly called "The Hong Kong People's Golf Club"). Hong Kong Golf Club was built by Scotsmen more than 100 years ago along the old border with China, and you can still see the steel-gray border guard towers from various tee boxes. When the Chinese Communists reassumed control of Hong Kong in 1997, one of the first issues raised by the new Chinese landlords was how many of them would get memberships at Hong Kong Golf Club. (Who says the Chinese Communists don't have their priorities right?) Its 54 holes have a wonderful old-world feel to them. My favorite, though, is the 19th hole. There's a delightful tradition at the club of sitting on the veranda after a round and cooling off with iced towels. Then you order 10 courses of different Chinese noodle and rice dishes, wash them down with draft beer, and play a dice version of liar's poker to see who picks up the tab for each course.