Don’t hold your breath for any PGA tournaments in Red China. These folks apparently think its the devils handiwork.
These are the same dumb muthafuckers that recently spent a freaking fortune hosting the Olympics? And they think a golf course is an extravagance? Elitist? Hell they even shut down factories for the Olympics. They had to cut the smog because it was choking the athletes.
I sort of understand their attitude about elitist private courses. Has anyone told them how many public course are in the US? Nearly every city of any size has them. Available to even the most common blue collar worker for a modest greens fee? My family used cheap clubs ordered from Sears & Robuck. Elitist my ass.
Golf is *inherently *elitist, because you turn a large area of arable land into a funpark that can only support a handful of players at any given time. Doesn’t matter if the course is public or private.
In a country where politics have for a very long time been agriculture- and peasant-centric, it’s quite understandable they wouldn’t be down with that.
China is huge. Would they have land shortages for agriculture?
<shrug> Just when it seems the country is modernizing stories like this come out. Golf could bring in tourism. Especially if they partnered with the PGA and hosted tournaments.
I’m not sure. Are the golf tournaments in Europe (European Tour) affiliated with the PGA in any way?
They’re wrong about closing them but I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong about the perception of golf. The Chinese official said that golf is synonymous with extravagance, which is true. That’s different than saying golf is extravagant, which is false. And even in the US, public courses are far different than the manicured lawns and well-kept grass you’ll find in the best courses.
The relationship behind China and golf is extremely complicated and mostly not about golf. A journalist wrote a book about it a few years ago, there’s an interesting summary in the telegraph.
I wonder what makes them illegal. Were they built after 2004? Were they strictly private?
As for “affordability,” you can buy a 10-piece “starter set” at Overprice for “only” $100. One problem might be that some golfers could become envious of others’ more expensive sets; another might be that I don’t think there are any Chinese club manufacturers, so all clubs would have to be imported.
China has *lots *of people to feed.
But besides that, the principle stands - again, it’s probably less about the actual economics & mathematical nuts and bolts of the equation and more about “rah rah farmable land/capitalist wastefulness/rich people’s extravagance”. And I mean, public course or not, you can’t deny golf is perceived as a posh sport. Mao himself railed about it on these terms.
Besides, while I’m no expert on the sport, I understand golf courses require pretty good land to grow even grass and such. So it might be less about absolute acrage, and more about “hogging the most profitable/productive land”.
Do people really travel abroad just to sample this or that golf course, besides pro athletes ?
I’ll freely grant I’m really not wise in these matters - my parents would play golf wherever we went on holidays to be sure, provided there were courses available, but I don’t believe they picked holiday spots because there were golf courses there. IMO the tourism angle is marginal at best.
Not really. They can truck in some topsoil. Look at all the desert golf courses in Arizona.
Yes, people go to Scotland for this reason all the time. Same with the Dominican Republic, although there are plenty of other attractions there as well. (Scotland, too) But the primary reason is the golf.
Two golf tournaments are being played in China on the European Tour (The European Tour is geography challenged) right after the Masters.
The PGATour has a satellite developmental tour based in China.
Tiger is has apparently signed a 15 Million dollar deal to design one course and re-design another course. It is supposed to announced sometime next month.
These folks apparently think its the devils handiwork.
Since it was reported they’ve been illegal for a decade and 70 were just closed.