China Golf Boom
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China is in the midst of a golf boom with courses and players growing at the same rate as the country's economy. Phil O'Sullivan headed out onto the fairways for this report.
Dong Li started playing golf two months ago. He owns his own battery production company in the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong. Li is one of the growing numbers of successful, young, Chinese entrepreneurs who are driving the golf boom on the Mainland.
For Li, golf is as much about business as it is about pleasure.
"I do enjoy it," he says. "I use a game of golf as a place to also do business with my clients. I use this golf course as part of my office."
There is no more obvious sign of this golf explosion than amid the factories and construction of China's Guangdong province. The export powerhouse is also home to Mission Hills Resort. With the completion of its tenth golf course early next year, Mission Hills will become the world's biggest golf complex. It surpasses Pinehurst in North Carolina, which has eight courses.
There's certainly plenty of demand for the club's courses. Members at Mission Hills are advised to book over the Internet ten days in advance if they want to play a round on the weekend. The courses open at six in the morning and because there are floodlights, the last players don't have to stop playing until 2am the next day.
Golf is in the rough in the rest of the world as player numbers fall and courses close. But the game is still very much in its infancy in China and its growth is running parallel with China's rapid economic development.
More and more Chinese are becoming able to afford membership fees of up to one hundred thousand U.S. dollars at Mission Hills. But the resort's developers say the potential is relatively untapped.
"Well over a hundred million people live within a two-and-a-half hour radius. That is almost forty percent of the population of America," says Mission Hills Group chairman David Chu.
Chu started Mission Hills in 1993 with a $120 million investment in 20 square kilometers of land. Well-known professionals like Ernie Els and Anika Sorenstam have designed the courses and Tiger Woods helped boost Mission Hills and the game of golf in general when he played his first game in China at the club.
Twenty years ago there was only one golf course in the whole of China, but today there are around 170 and that number is set to more than double by next year.
"New golf courses are being built all over China with incredible speed." Says Li Man of Beijing's Xinyi Golf Club.
"There's a development from what used to be private golf clubs for members only towards public golf courses catering for mass use. So now a lot of golf courses are not actually that expensive to get into."
Despite just missing his putt, Dong Li is confident more and more Chinese people will start playing golf as it is good exercise and good for business.
Then he goes back to practice in anticipation of more competition.
