About

I am Dan Washburn, an American writer based in Shanghai, China. I am currently researching a book about the development of golf in China. Golf, its emergence and growth in China, is a barometer for the country’s rapid economic rise. But golf is also symbolic of the less glamorous realities of a nation’s awkward and arduous evolution from developing to developed — historical prejudice, class struggle, political corruption, environmental neglect, and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor. This website is dedicated to some of my work on the topic.

My writing has appeared in such publications as Slate, Financial Times Weekend Magazine, Foreign Policy, ESPN.com, Golf World, GOOD, Budget Travel, Economist.com, Outside’s GO, Business China (part of The Economist), Baseball America and the South China Morning Post. In 2008, a piece of mine was featured in the book Inside The Ropes: Sportswriters Get Their Game On, an anthology of the best of participatory sports journalism.

I have been writing professionally for daily newspapers and magazines since I was 17 years old. Before moving to China in 2002, I spent four years writing for The Times of Gainesville, Georgia, located 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta. At The Times, I wrote the popular Sporting Life column, a weekly foray into participatory journalism. For the sake of a good story, I took part in activities like bull riding, sky diving, ice climbing, “handgrabbing” for giant catfish — even nude water volleyball — and lived to write about it.

I won the Georgia Sports Writers Association’s top prize in Outdoors Writing four years in a row. In 2001, I was named Georgia’s Best Sports Columnist. I have been recognized nationally several times by the Associated Press Sports Editors for my Enterprise Reporting. I have also earned the top prize in Sports Writing from both the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Associated Press.

Photo of Dan Washburn by Ariana Lindquist