CADDIE'S ROLE:WE WERE in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago for the HSBC World Golf Championship and naturally the 70-odd man field consisted mainly of foreign golfers.
Liang Wen-Chong was there in his own right as a world-ranked player. But he is from a different era in the brief history of Chinese golf; he used to caddie and that, like many talented golfers worldwide before him, is how he made his way into the professional game. He is from a humble background.
There were four other Chinese players in the field given an exemption to the prestigious event from their rankings on the embryonic Chinese tour, which has got about seven events and about 100 participants. They all finished as also-rans above 70th position in the event with no half-way cut.
It is an indication of where modern Chinese professional golf is at the end of the first decade of the new millennium. There has been a slight shift in the sense that the golfers are coming from a more affluent background and have been formally coached, rather than the self-taught pioneering efforts of Zhang Lian-Wei, the first Chinese player to feature in the international game in the 1990s.
As the mammoth task of the national census nears completion with some six million staff working on it, counting heads and getting accurate detail on a population estimated at 1.3 billion can only be an unrefined science. It is hard to put a figure on the number of golfers in China, probably two million people are estimated to play the game. This, like everything else in this dynamic country, will grow exponentially in the near future. But how long will it take before the Chinese rate internationally?
The Swedes went from zeros to heroes in European golf back in the late 1980s after a conscious national effort was made to nurture elite golfers in a country that had not been previously recognised as a golfing land. Golf was made accessible to a wider audience by keeping the game affordable. The winters limit the season, but the Swedes are now well known as a golfing nation in a a matter of decades. Surely the same if not better could be done in China with its obvious numbers advantage?
I spoke to Michael Wong, who is in charge of developing Chinese junior golf. One of the early initiatives was to get talented juniors to hit a shot to the 17th hole at Sheshan during the pro-am for the tournament. We were all impressed by most of the swings these youngsters made in front of the professionals. Their progress since its conception four years ago is already evident; the tee they were playing from was farther back this year and the hole is a long carry over water.
The chances are these young hopefuls come from a wealthy background. With a membership at the exclusive Sheshan Golf Club costing over 1.6 million yuan and with 500,000 yuan (€177,191) being a pretty normal membership fee, there are not too many citizens from the fields in the market for these clubs yet. But there are initiatives being made to reach out to the less well off.
Without it sounding like an altruistic effort on behalf of the developers in China, there are plenty of courses being built at personal expense. Even though there is a moratorium on course building, in true local fashion courses are still developing. There are 600-700 courses already built and that will double in the next five years. They somehow estimate by then 10 million Chinese will play the game.
The government will not build courses, but with the assistance of private developers who want to build a private club they are cajoled into building a public facility next door. This introduces economies of scale on construction and maintenance and keeps a check on the, till now, exclusive development of the game in China.
China is, of course, an architect’s dreamland. Much like the explosion of the ultra-modern and futuristic skyscrapers in the Pudong area of Shanghai whetted the world’s leading architects’ appetites for higher buildings, the same is happening on the ground with foreign course designers. There are over 200 booths at the Beijing Golf Show and many of them are set up by foreign course designers. It is the place to be as a course builder. Understanding how to realise your design dreams is a trickier business where local knowledge can often be more important than professionalism.
The fact golf will be included at the Olympic Games in 2016 and 2022 is bound to give the game a boost in a country that has more value for an Olympic gold medal than a Green Jacket from Georgia. Liu Xiang, the Chinese hurdler, is the second richest sportsman in the country after the basketball legend Yao Ming. The people value medals. Therefore golf for China needs to be in the Olympics. In these harsh economic times golf’s inclusion at the Olympics is a shot in the arm for flagging western course designers. Jack Nicklaus is no stranger to the East.
The game of golf is on the march in the biggest country in the world. Like many aspects of life in China it is happening fast and furious with little regulation. About 90 per cent of the courses are not rated and this means there is no handicap system.
With the Sars scare earlier in the decade came the wealthy Chinese to the country clubs. It was better then to be outdoors rather than inside. They knew nothing about the game apart from its outdoor appeal. They brought their kids with them to the club. Now they bring coaches, mostly foreign, with them to the practice range.
The elite Chinese golfers have advanced from asking how to shape or flight the golf ball to inquiring how to prepare for a tournament, how to keep swing-fit and how to play a course strategically. Their questions are more advanced. Golf is gradually starting to take off in China. All you have to do is take a small percentage of the vast population and project to the future and you come up with an awful lot of new golfers with social status and Olympic medals on their minds.
Rankings
World rankings
(last week’s positions in brackets)
1 (1) Lee Westwood (Eng)8.70avg pts
2 (2) Tiger Woods (US)8.25
3 (3) Martin Kaymer (Ger)7.81
4 (4) Phil Mickelson (US)7.61
5 (5) Steve Stricker (US)6.94
6 (6) Jim Furyk (US)6.87
7 (7) Paul Casey (Eng)6.16
8 (8) Luke Donald (Eng)5.90
9 (10) Graeme McDowell (NIre)5.57
10 (9) Rory McIlroy (NIre)5.53
11 (11) Matt Kuchar (US)5.22
12 (12) Ernie Els (Rsa)5.14
13 (13) Dustin Johnson (US)4.97
14 (15) Ian Poulter (Eng)4.57
15 (14) Francesco Molinari (Ita)4.50
16 (16) Hunter Mahan (US)4.33
17 (17) Edoardo Molinari (Ita)4.32
18 (18) Retief Goosen (Rsa)4.28
19 (19) Zach Johnson (US)3.99
20 (41) Adam Scott (Aus)3.97
Race To Dubai
1 Martin Kaymer (Ger)€3,207,229
2 Graeme McDowell (NIre)€2,675,423
3 Lee Westwood (Eng)€2,362,143
4 Francesco Molinari (Ita)€2,201,614
5 Ernie Els (Rsa)€1,911,760
6 Charl Schwartzel (Rsa)€1,873,139
7 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa)€1,806,540
8 Edoardo Molinari (Ita)€1,785,937
9 Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa)€1,767,617
10 Paul Casey (Eng)€1,543,311
11 Ian Poulter (Eng)€1,542,630
12 Luke Donald (Eng)€1,410,430
13 Rory McIlroy (NIre)€1,375,399
14 Ross Fisher (Eng)€1,309,024
15 Alvaro Quiros (Spa)€1,285,977
16 Peter Hanson (Swe)€1,237,728
17 Rhys Davies (Wal)€1,197,093
18 Padraig Harrington (Ire)€1,108,967
19 Richard Green (Aus)€1,102,793
20 Robert Karlsson (Swe)€1,058,411
