At any gathering of golf architects, one can generally divide the attendees into two categories: those who have a flourishing China-based business, and those who would like one. “Every third booth at the recent China golf show in Beijing seemed to be a golf course architect,” says American designer Dana Fry, who, like many of his colleagues, is currently spending a high proportion of his time in the country.

There are other markets – India, Brazil, Korea – where golf is being planned and built in quantities, but nowhere that can match China’s twin attributes of large-scale new wealth and a political environment that allows developers to get access to large chunks of land at a relatively low cost. The authoritarian nature of Chinese government means that projects, when they are greenlighted, can get going with remarkable speed, compared to the planning crawl so common elsewhere in the world – and this in a country with a well-publicised official moratorium on new golf course construction officially in place. …

Although there is no doubt the Chinese are taking to golf in increasing numbers – industry insiders report packed driving ranges all over the vast country – actual course development, at the moment, is only tangentially related to demand for golf. Rather, golf courses are a tool for land speculation, and a way for developers to hitch a ride on China’s booming housing market. As yet, there are very few courses in the country that are not tied either to housing or hotel projects.

A large chunk of the piece focuses on Hainan, specifically Mission Hills Hainan, by way of conversations with Mission Hills designer Brian Curley, of Schmidt-Curley Design. Curley provides some insight into how the Hainan project came to be — including the mountain they “whittled down” so they could blanket the lava rock landscape with soil — and the prospects for Hainan golf success in general. He is of the mind that Hainan “has legs.”

I have two minor quibbles with the Golf Course Architecture story. Namely this statement from the author:

Few in the industry doubt that Hainan has legs …

And this one:

Everyone in the golf industry has heard the projections of thirty million Chinese golfers within the next ten years, and few dismiss them out of hand …

Lots of people — especially those working in the golf industry on the island — have doubts about Hainan, and the 100 or so courses expected there in the coming years. Hainan is home to only two or three thousand golfers, so courses had better hope mainland golf tourists start arriving in droves (which, if I am not mistaken, would require the addition of a slew of flights between the mainland and the island and at least one airport expansion).

And I haven’t met anyone who takes the 30-million-golfer projections very seriously (realistic estimates put the present number of golfers in China at around 1 million).

But China has surprised us all before.

Gluckman does try to address one question I am often asked about the gigantic $4.4 billion Mission Hills project on Hainan Island: Where does all the money come from? Alas, such details are not easy to nail down:

The company is tight-lipped about how it’s funding this massive project, declining to name any of the other investors or say whether any funds are borrowed. A statement from the company says only that $880 million has been spent so far and that “investors include entrepreneurs and professionals from different industries from China and Hong Kong.” It also won’t disclose its annual revenue and profit.

Further down in the piece, this juicy passage comes out of nowhere:

In 2002 Mission Hills became entangled in a scandal when one of its investors was murdered amid a suit against the company. A single shot to the head killed Harry Lam Hon-lit after he sat down to his usual breakfast at the Luk Yu Teahouse on Stanley Street in Central. The killing occurred as a court was due to hear his lawsuit to halt work and sales at Mission Hills over a dispute on the value of his shares. He held rights equivalent to a 3% stake in the project, according to reports, and said this entitled him to sell memberships.

The case received widespread publicity in a city fascinated by gangland disputes. The killers fled to China, where they were arrested. Eventually the web of intrigue spread from the killers, who reports said were former People’s Liberation Army soldiers, to a network of paymasters hired by Yeung Ka-on, a kung fu actor turned businessman. Six people were convicted in 2006, including Yeung, but no motive or link to the victim was established.

GGP: What is the biggest misconception about golf in China?

CR: People assume that China is exploding with growth in golf. There’s growth, and if you go to certain areas, like Hainan Island in the south, you see a lot of construction, but it’s not the panacea that people think. There are fewer courses under construction in China now than there were in America 20 years ago. Golf is 30 years old in China, so every new course that comes on line represents a big percentage increase, because the base was so low. There is growth, sure, but in terms of facilities, China still represents a small fraction of the golf industry.

GGP: Then why does the rest of the world look at China as a Boomtown for golf?

CR: Well, when the game is shrinking everywhere else, any growth is viewed as a boom. But I also think people are awed by the size and scope of the facilities in China. It took Pinehurst a century to have, what, 10 golf courses? Mission Hills built 12 courses in 20 years, and will double that number with the Hainan Island project in the next 10 years. And the courses they’re building couldn’t be built in the West. If an architect wants to lop the top off a mountain to build a course, there’s no EPA or Corp of Engineers or Sierra Club telling him he can’t. That’s not always a good thing, but it gives golf developers a lot more freedom, which is funny to say about a country like China.

You can read the entire interview here (free subscription required). More information about Reid’s academy, part of the Mission Hills golf complex in Shenzhen, can be found here.

¹ Am I missing something or is it next to impossible to copy and paste text from Global Golf Post stories? I eventually figured something out, but it was a very clunky workaround. If someone knows the secret, please let me know.

“Mission Hills has always strived to balance economic benefits to the community with proper stewardship of the environment,” Dr Ken Chu, Group Executive Vice Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of the Mission Hills Group, told CNN by email.

“By incorporating low-density development with vast open-space greenbelts, our current project in Haikou has transformed a barren, lava-rock landscape into an economically productive community.”

Their claims are backed up by the local government, with spokesman Mr. Zhao telling CNN that the location of the complex followed “careful” investigation.

“Therefore, the project will not pollute the environment,” he said.

Greenpeace says it plans to investigate. Read the whole CNN story here.

For some backstory, you may want to check out my Financial Times Weekend Magazine piece, which got this whole conversation started, and also the Foreign Policy magazine photo essay I helped produce with photojournalist Ryan Pyle. In recent months, as part of Mission Hills’ media blitz following the opening of its Hainan facility in March, several media outlets — including the BBC and the Wall Street Journal — have published stories about the island development. Unfortunately, none of the pieces has probed too deeply (or shown much interest in the art of the follow-up question).

So, I’ll leave you with a nice piece from The Guardian‘s Jonathan Watts, which first appeared in April. It’s called “All the tees in China: Golf boom threatens rainforest” and focuses on a controversial golf development in a Hainan national park. The accompanying video — well worth watching — is embedded below.

When the owners of California’s Pebble Beach Golf Club got wind that Golden Pebble Beach Golf Club had opened in China to rave reviews, the American club hastily sent off a letter demanding the Dalian upstart cease from using its “Pebble Beach” name. Honored the famed club had recognized its existence, the Liaoning newcomer wrote back that the area had been called “Pebble Beach” for about 5,000 years and suggested they change their name. The matter was quickly dropped.

It’s a nice little anecdote. But, is it completely accurate? Kind of. Sort of. I’m not so sure. It’s true the golf course exists inside a coastal tourism area near the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian known as 金石滩 (jīn shí tān), which directly translates into “golden stone beach.” Now, was choosing “pebble” instead of “stone” for the English translation an accident? Or was it perhaps influenced by the famous name of the 91-year-old Pebble Beach Golf Links, site of this week’s U.S. Open? I’ve never visited, so I can’t be sure. But I do know the Chinese name of the golf club is simply 金石 (jīn shí) or “golden stone” — no “beach.” And I also know the Chinese name for the Pebble Beach in California is 圆石滩 (yuán shí tān), literally “round stone beach.” The common Chinese word for “pebble,” by the way, is 卵石 (luǎn shí).

Quibbles over the course’s English name aside, the Peter L.H. Thompson-designed course, which opened in 1995, sure does occupy a beautiful piece of land. China International Business calls it one of “China’s hidden beauties,” although it’s been recognized before. CIB notes “a weekday round at the 36-hole Golden Pebble Beach can be enjoyed for about a fifth of the price of its more famous namesake.”

Another recent blog post by Chris Santella goes into a little more detail about the origins of the Chinese Pebble Beach course. Here’s an observation from golf photographer John R. Johnson, who was present during the course’s construction:

They had hundreds of people working on course, many husband and wife teams. These people had no concept of what a golf course was. They were shown pictures of what they were building and followed instructions. They had some heavy equipment but were not making much use of it. I remember the image of a backhoe sitting idle, with people working all around it, digging irrigation ditches by hand. The husband would swing a pickax, and his wife would scoop out the dirt in between swings.

Finally, a rave review by one Thomas L. Friedman — yes, that Thomas L. Friedman — from back in 2001:

After playing China’s spectacular Golden Pebble Beach Golf & Country Club, located on a rocky coastline outside Dalian, in northeastern China, I flew home to Washington, D.C., and described it this way to my regular foursome: “Guys, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve found a links course more beautiful than Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula. The green fees are only $80, you don’t need a tee time and the caddies are all women. The bad news is, it’s a 20-hour flight from here.”

Seriously, if the half-dozen holes at China’s Golden Pebble that weave along the Yellow Sea–including a dramatic downhill par 3 perched on a cliff, where losing your balance could cost you your life–were in America, the green fees would be $300.

The episode, filmed during Typhoon Ketsana in the fall of 2009, is worth watching (and thanks to the wonders of Chinese piracy, it’s available in full at Youku.com — it’s also embedded in this post).

A little digging tells us the show was shot for $250,000 and that it represents the start of a 52-episode sponsorship of the series in China by Snow Beer.

A little more digging and we are blessed with this gem of a quote from Wang Qun, managing director of Snow Beer: “Bear Grylls and the Man vs. Wild series demonstrate strong determination and the strength of the human spirit in overcoming tough environments and difficulties, which embodies the brand spirit of Snow Beer.”

For those unfamiliar with Snow Beer, it’s awful. If you are offered Snow Beer for free at a hot pot restaurant, refuse it. But don’t take my word: RateBeer.com puts Snow in the 8th percentile for pale lagers and it gets a D- over at BeerAdvocate.com, where one reviewer noted: “Aroma smells faintly of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. Hints of plastic like chemicals.”

Perhaps Snow chose Man vs. Wild for a reason. Anything’s got to taste good after eating rats, bats and still-twitching frogs.

A couple days ago, Australia’s Daily Telegraph reported that the country’s highest-earning sportsman was closing his only office in Australia to “chase the Asian golfing dollar through China.” The paper continued, “[T]he design company has opened a new sales and marketing office in Beijing, China, signalling Asia as its key area of growth.”

This is just the latest sign that China is the golf course construction industry at the moment. As nearly every designer or project manager I talk to says: If you aren’t working in China, you probably aren’t working. Not bad, considering their line of work is technically illegal here.

The Greg Norman Golf Course Design website lists three completed Norman designs in China, the most recent being the 2004 Norman Course at Mission Hills in Shenzhen. Although Norman was in China last March for the grand opening of Mission Hills Hainan, his site does not list any China courses under construction or planned. I assume that is about to change.

But don’t hang your heads, Aussies. According to Norman’s spokesman: “Greg’s a proud Australian: that’s why he had an office in Australia. Greg’s always going to be passionate about Australia.” So, you’ve got that going for you.

In unrelated news, gossip rags are reporting that Tiger Woods’ “fully independent” wife Elin is “planning an extended trip to China within the next few months.” Call it a hunch, but I bet she won’t be waiting in line at the Shanghai World Expo’s Swedish Pavilion.

The 34-year-old said the greens at Shanghai’s Sheshan International Golf Club, site of the WGC-HSBC Champions event every November, are “probably the best surface we putt on all year.” He added, “They’ve spent an awful lot of money in developing that golf course.”

Poulter’s other China pick is the Olazabal Course at Mission Hills in Shenzhen, where he has thrice represented England in golf’s World Cup. “[It's] a clever golf course,” the 2010 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship winner said. He added: “They need an Ian Poulter course now.”

Mission Hills Group, owner of the world’s largest golf club, will boost investment sixfold in a golfing complex on China’s Hainan island as the nation’s economic rebound spurs a tourism and property boom.

Mission Hills, based in Shenzhen, the southern city adjacent to Hong Kong, is to spend a further 25 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) by adding more golfing, retail and community facilities at its 5 billion-yuan club in Haikou, in the island’s north, Vice Chairman Ken Chu said in an interview in Hong Kong.

So that’s 30 billion yuan already, and it looks like that will cover less than half of what Mission Hills eventually has planned for its Hainan mega-complex. Further on in the story:

The Hainan club, built on top of a volcano, opened in March offering an initial six courses, according to company data. The group is operating it as a public, rather than a members-only, facility to attract more golfers, Chu said.

When fully completed, the Hainan club will feature 10 courses, according to the company, and will be similar in size to the Shenzhen complex, which spreads across 20 square kilometers (5,000 acres), or equivalent to the combined size of six Central Parks in New York City. The Hainan government, meanwhile, suggests on its website that the development may eventually have 30 courses.

OK, first let’s clear a couple things up:

• Mission Hills is not “on top of a volcano.” That’s like saying my dad’s house in Honolulu is built on top of Diamond Head. Part of the Mission Hills land in Hainan is east of a 42-square-mile national geological park built around the crater of an extinct volcano. The Mission Hills land is home to lots and lots of lava rock, however.
• The “30 courses” nugget is old news, and no longer accurate. It’s true that the English version of the Hainan Foreign Affairs Office website includes a story that says, “rumor has it that the project will feature upwards of 30 courses.” What Bloomberg does not mention is that the government website simply copied and pasted a story called “The Greening of Hainan” from the January 2010 issue of China International Business. That story, written by Al Campbell, was likely filed sometime in late 2009, long before Mission Hills admitted even having plans for a project in Hainan (that admission came just in time for the grand opening in March) and before Al had a chance to read my January exposé on Mission Hills Hainan for Financial Times Weekend Magazine, which stated the new estimate at around 22 courses. It’s true that 36 courses were originally planned, but a part of the land deal fell through and Mission Hills had to settle for only 31 square miles.
• UPDATE: I forgot to comment on “operating it as a public, rather than a members-only.” Without knowing the greens fees Mission Hills is charging, this statement could be meaningless. Most “private” golf clubs in China still allow non-members to play — for a price. I’d be surprised, but pleasantly surprised, if Mission Hills Hainan offers anything near public course costs on any of its courses. Can anyone whose played there give us an idea of the fees?

What’s most jaw-dropping, to me at least, is that apparently the $4.4 billion is only enough to cover the development around the initial 10 courses. Add in those final 12 courses (currently delayed by — no surprise in China — land issues) and we could be looking at a total price tag of about $10 billion, a figure greater than the GDPs of at least 60 countries.

Near the end of the story we learn:

Since golf was added to the Olympics program in October, the number of people playing the game has risen to 5 million from 3 million, according to China Golf Association.

As the Wall Street Journal‘s Jamie Miyazaki recently discovered, trying to pin down an accurate number of golfers in China in no easy task. But here’s some advice, disregard any statistic that says China added 2 million golfers in seven months … during winter.

Finally, a note to people writing about golf in China: Mission Hills in Shenzhen is not “the world’s largest golf club.” From my FT piece:

For now, Mission Hills Shenzhen touts itself as the “World’s No. 1”, and Guinness World Records plays along, labelling the 20sq km, 12-course golf club the largest on the planet, even though Nanshan International Golf Club in north-eastern China has 63 more holes.

Although, if what I’ve heard of Nanshan is accurate, Mission Hills could easily be “the world’s largest quality golf club.”

Having the world’s No. 1 as a client magnified his profile dramatically. He has added the Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy. The program prepares junior players for college scholarships with golf training, academics and competition.

He will soon be announcing a similar program in China and will spend a considerable amount of time there.