GolfPlus June 2018 Digital Edition (June 2018) | Page 25

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king’s ransom for the services of 2013 USPGA Championship winner,
Jason Dufner – surely amongst the most featureless and uninspiring
marquee name in the game – delayed confi rmation of venues and dates
halted momentum. And, above all else, the ill-fated decision to comply
with the China Golf Association diktat in 2009 to ditch the Asian Tour
in favour of the hapless, doomed-to-fail OneAsia circuit, a decision,
despite its reversal in 2018 from which an event seemingly destined for
great things all-but ground to a halt. This has seen the Volvo China Open
slip back way down the pecking order, little better than a Challenge
Tour event with a European Tour prize fund, Volvo HQ losing interest,
cutting the event adrift to the local car division and, once the current
contract is up next year, an uncertain future, if any. And that’s been
the pattern with men’s professional golf events in China; in 2007, the
country hosted fi ve European Tour events, including the Volvo China
Open, the BMW Asian Open / BMW Masters, the HSBC Champions
and the World Cup of Golf. But, with the Volvo China Open hanging
by a thread, BMW engaging reverse gear and mysteriously pulling out
of its prestigious, ‘Final Series,’ event in 2016, another, the short-lived
Shenzhen International, disappearing off the scene this year. Then, the
much-vaunted PGA TOUR China Series, launched to a fanfare in 2014
now reinstated following a one-year hiatus, an initial eight events of 14
scheduled for 2018 following rumours of political meddling and worse.
The ladies game has fared little better, just a single LPGA Tour event in
the country, a second cancelled in mysterious circumstances last year
at the 11th hour, alas politics and golf regular playing partners in the
PRC, and all this despite Olympic medals being up for grabs, a bronze
won by Shanshan Feng in Rio, silver or gold a must, one suspects in
Tokyo in two-years-time.
Back in 2012, the China Golf Association, an arm of the all-
embracing Chinese state - part of the catchily-named Small Ball
Sports Management Center of General Administration of Sport of
China - trumpeted the opening of a state-of-the-art CGA / Nanshan
International Golf Training Center, a sprawling US$70m purpose-
built facility with one unashamed ambition. “Future major winners
and Olympic champions will grow from this place,” said CGA chief
Zhang Xiaoning, adding, “China is a latecomer in golf and still lags far
behind in professional training and coaching. “This center is the fi rst
one in China to provide comprehensive training [where] our golfers
can receive long and systematic training and gain all-round services
and coaching classes,” concluded Mr. Zhang.
But, when it comes to golf, the Chinese government speaks
with a forked tongue.Golf was banned in China in 1949 for being
too ‘Bourgeois’ the sport only emerging from the shadows in 1984,
the year the late, great Arnold Palmer opened the country’s fi rst golf
course, Zhongshan Hot Spring Resort, coincidentally the city former
Chinese number-one was to be born in four-years-later.China banned
the development of new golf courses in 2004, when it had fewer than
200, reportedly in an effort to conserve water and land, but since
that time, the number of courses more than tripled to 683 before the
latest crackdown.Early last year, the Chinese Government launched a
renewed clampdown on golf, closing 111 courses supposedly in favour
of agricultural activity, but the game had come under close scrutiny by
way of the sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched under Chinese
President Xi Jinping. A Communist Party edict warned its 88 million
members in 2015 not to play golf, likening the game to ‘Extravagant
eating and drinking,’ and other errant practices that were at odds with
the party’s stated core principles.The basic problem is golf in China
remains a rich man’s game, initiation fees at a prestigious city golf
club in the order of US$200,000 – US$250,000, at least 10% on top for
annual membership fees and frequently linked to US$10m-plus luxury
homes lining the fairways.As such, the estimated number of regular
Chinese golfers, said -e through rose-tinted glasses on suspects - to
be approaching the million-mark (that’s less than 0.1% of the Chinese
Poor Crowds at Volvo China Open Reveal the Difficulty the Game Faces in the PRC
Crouching Tiger - Chinese kid Li Haotong is the Future of Chinese Golf
Driving Force, Chinese Star Shanshan Feng Must encourage More Girls to Take Up Golf
Image Courtesy: Kelvin Boyes/PressEye
population regularly play golf) in 2014 is said to be steadily falling,
the Jack Nicklaus prediction of, ‘20m golfers in China by 2020,’
now looking wildly optimistic, even to a man who makes his money
designing and building courses. So, had China fallen out of love with
golf, or golf fallen out of love with China? Probably a bit of both;
a government that gives with one hand when Olympic gold is at the
end of the rainbow, but takes away with a toxic combination of public
policy, envy and score-settling, a cash-rich, time-poor population in
a hurry, unable to fi nd the disposable time or income to support an
elitist, expensive and time-consuming sport, and businesses, especially
western consumer brands, fi nding a better bang-for-their-buck
elsewhere.China crisis, possibly not quite yet, but with all the pointers
heading downwards, the game of golf behind the Great Wall does not
have its troubles to seek; but, were Shanshan Feng and / or Li Haotong
to strike gold at the Kasumigaseki Country Club near Tokyo in just
over two-years-time, everything, politically, commercially, fi nancially
and socially could change send golf soaring once again.
GolfPlus
JUN E
2018
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