Strange Times: NY Times On China's Golf Crackdown

With Tiger Woods slated to announced his big Beijing design job on April 23rd, the recent stories out of China about golf crackdowns figure to make the wording of that announcement extra fun!

Thanks to all who sent Austin Ramzy's NY Times story on the crackdown, which leans quite a bit on the reporting and observations of Dan Washburn. (You can also listen to Dan on this episode of State of the Game.)

Dan Washburn, author of “The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream,” said the crackdown was not surprising given the game’s reputation in China as a capitalist pastime and the extent of Mr. Xi’s prolonged campaign against corruption, which has toppled senior party and military leaders.

“This is Xi Jinping’s China, and it’s clear he’s intent on making his mark,” Mr. Washburn said. “Everyone’s a potential target in this ongoing crackdown on corruption, and golf is a particularly easy and obvious one.”

Washburn penned this CNN piece during Masters week with more insights into this utterly bizarre situation that has the government shutting down courses and politicians, but also funding golf because of its place in the Olympic Games.

In Guangdong province, the birthplace of golf in modern China, an investigative team has been formed to crack down on officials who took part in any of nine golf-related activities. There's even a public hotline for reporting suspected golf violations.

Over the past decade, however, not much seemed like it could get in the way of golf's meteoric growth in China. While it's been illegal to build new golf courses in China since at least 2004, no other country has built more of them over the past decade -- not even close.

Beijing would say new construction is banned, while at the same time local governments would line their pockets with the proceeds from the boom. There didn't seem to be too many rules in all of this, but one was especially important: When building a golf course in China, don't call it a golf course. One massive project of note was known as "ecological restoration."

Washburn speaking in this embedded clip:

Tiger Getting $16.5 Million For Two China Design Projects?

That's what Josh Sens at golf.com says.

The funniest part? The developer, Pacific Links International, confirms and even produces a boilerplate quote from Woods. And Tiger's spokesman Glenn Greenspan? No comment.

Asked about the Beijing project, Tiger spokesman Glenn Greenspan said that Woods had nothing to announce at the moment.

But in a statement provided to Golf.com by Pacific Links, Woods is quoted as saying, “We strongly believe this course will stand the test of time and be one of the most prestigious courses in China, and even Asia.”

Pacific Links executives did not respond to questions about the financial terms of the deal.

It's still illegal to build a "golf course" in China where construction has been in full stop mode according to Dan Washburn (and others who, so maybe Team Tiger is just trying to avoid being seen as breaking the law?

Update on 2015-03-31 03:31 by Geoff

**John Strege talks to Golf Digest China's David Lee to try to understand what Tiger will design or redesign with a moratorium on course construction in China.

As for the closing of courses, the Tian’an Holiday Golf Club “wasn’t on the list of courses in trouble,” Lee said. The 66 courses closed were built after the 2004 ban that, Reuters reported, was “imposed to protect China's shrinking land and water resources in a country home to a fifth of the world's population but which has just 7 percent of its water.”

“It’s all very, very confusing,” Lee said.

We talked about the latest Tiger design news on Morning Drive.

WSJ: "Golf, as it’s now played in China, doesn’t have a promising future."

It'll come as a massive shock that the hyper-expensive, uber-gawdy, totally-unsustainable version of golf exported to China appears to be slowing down.

Andrew Browne, writing for the Wall Street Journal (thanks to JB and Bertie for sending), writes:

Just a few months ago, members of a newly opened Jack Nicklaus signature course in the Beijing suburbs woke up to discover the venue had been ordered shut amid a government audit of all of the city’s clubs. It was allowed to reopen after a few weeks, but only for members, not their guests. A nearby club didn’t get off so lightly: it had to plow up its immaculate greens and close permanently.

This isn’t a passing shower. Golf, as it’s now played in China, doesn’t have a promising future.

Browne cites Dan Washburn, guest on State of the Game and author of the best golf book of 2014, as his background for golf's history in modern China.

Washburn recently visited and offered this on his website:

But during my recent two weeks in China, I encountered more pessimism and uncertainty from those in the industry than ever before. Everyone quoted the rumor that up to 100 courses would soon be shut down, a process that perhaps got kickstarted with the closure of a handful of courses this summer. Beijing then, as it had a handful of times over the previous decade, reiterated its oft referenced but rarely enforced ban on golf course construction. It did so again just this week. Things do appear to be ratcheting up.

What to make of it? Who knows. Maybe this is truly the end of the boom. Maybe it’s just another bump in the road. Either way, it seems a good time to share with you a recent email I received from a China golf course industry veteran.

That email is worth checking out (many paragraphs). And as you might suspect, all of the reasons for the slowdown were predictable.

State Of The Game Podcast 47: Dan Washburn & China

After an exclusive three week tour of Europe, Scandinavia and the sub continent, State of the Game is back!

We're going to try and record a news-driven episode later in the week but with big men's events heading to China the next few weeks and his stellar new book to talk about, we welcomed Dan Washburn. Dan is a recovering journalist now working for the Asia Society out of Brooklyn. However his embedded account of life in China focusing on three men whose lives are tied to the golf industry is not only a fascinating look into the strange golf explosion, but a breezy, enlightening way to learn about life in China.

I recently got to hear Dan speak at USC when he was in town promoting the book and was thrilled to get him on State of the Game. You can check out Dan's book and website here, and buy it here at Amazon,

As for the show, you can listen to the MP3 here, listen here, subscribe to the show via iTunes here and listen to episode 47 here on iTunes.

Is China Demolishing Illegal Golf Courses?

Clare Jim and Xiaoyi Shao of Reuters file an investigative look at multiple golf courses that appear to have been demolished by the Chinese government for violating the 2004 ban on building "golf courses." They outline how many developers have gotten around this by calling their properties "sports training centers" or "tourist resorts."

Note the photo with the story showing the method to prevent people from crossing barriers onto the demolished courses. Thanks to reader Jeff for sending in this excellent Reuters report, which includes this:

During a recent visit to the 60-hectare (148-acre) site, a villager in his 20s told Reuters how workers wiped out virtually all trace of the course in a few weeks.

"Trucks went in and out. They almost destroyed the road in our village," said the man, surnamed Wang, who declined to give his full name.

Someone has since planted corn on parts of the muddy land.

The NDRC said the course had been built by Lao He Wan Investment Co under the guise of the Delong Agricultural Model Park. Reuters could not find any trace of the company. Local authorities responsible for the district did not respond to requests for comment.

Among the other courses demolished, one was built in southwestern Yunnan province by a subsidiary of medium-sized Chinese property developer Agile Property Holdings Ltd, the NDRC said. Agile declined to comment.

All five developers were fined.

HSBC Really Wishes Tiger Was Playing This Week

Generally I find the stories of late where sponsors complain about the lack of star presence to be a bit silly since golf is now a 52-week-a-year global sport and most of them signed on knowing this. However, after reading the grumbling of HSBC's Giles Morgan about Tiger's non-appearance in this week's WGC-HSBC despite being in China, I can kind of see the point.

Reported by Doug Ferguson from Shanghai:

Morgan said he was told a few months ago by Woods' agent that this was not going to work with his schedule. After a week of corporate work, Woods is playing (for another big appearance fee) in the Turkish Open, a European Tour event.

Like other overseas events, HSBC once paid to get the best players. But now that it's a full-fledged WGC, big appearance fees have been replaced by an $8.5 million purse.

"What I can't do is pay him," Morgan said. "And I feel enormously strong about that. This is a World Golf Championship. This is the flagship event of Asia. This is going to be the beacon to carry the game into this continent for many years to come. We could do the wrong thing by golf and drop the prize money right down and just pay one or two players huge fees. From a publicity standpoint, that would give us a certain amount of kudos because we'd get the top player in the world. And I'm absolutely not going down that route.

"We have an opportunity to be a genuine top 10 event in the world," he said. "That requires a massive investment, which we're pleased to do. And that means we want to be an authentic sponsor in the world of golf."

Of course HSBC also might think it's owed a favor as a founding partner of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, but as opening day headliner Bill Clinton can tell you, that doesn't mean a whole lot to Woods. And that may be why he's down to two blue chip sponsors.

WSJ: Most Of China's Golfers Have Never Set Foot On A Course

With Monday's "Match at Mission Hills" featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, John Paul Newport looks at golf in China and shares some staggering numbers.

Of course, the numbers are estimates...

These days there are roughly 600 courses in China and possibly one million golfers: estimates vary. Townend puts the figure at 700,000 and guesses that half have only hit balls at practice ranges—of which there are several thousand—never on a course.

"The average annual salary in China is something like $2,100 and the average cost to play golf is around $150 a round," said Dan Washburn, an American journalist who lived for several years in China and wrote "The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream" due next spring. "Golf isn't even on the mind of the average Chinese person. It's perceived as a rich man's game, and that's true, more so in China probably than anywhere else in the world."

Speaking of rich guys, the Back Nine Network is streaming the match except in the U.S., citing PGA Tour rules forbidding anything hosted by Ahmad Rashad to be censored.

That's a shame since last year's match featured arguably the best TV moment of the year when Tiger openly admitted his struggles with Sean Foley's swing ideas and dropped some colorful language in describing how he was hitting his short irons.

It was as if they didn't know they were being recorded!

Golf.com has posted a slideshow of the Blackstone Course at Mission Hills where the event will be played.

Update on 2013-10-28 02:55 by Geoff

**James Corrigan previews the match and says Rory's getting $1.5 million to Tiger's $2 million.

Meanwhile McIlroy is 62nd in the Race To Dubai with one event to go, notes Ryan Lavner. The top 60 make it to the finale.