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(Sent from my iPad)
Sure enough, 2 a.m. we land in Haikou. We ended up delayed in Guangzhou. Come to find out, a good travel trip for China is to never plan on a connection to be on time in the afternoon. We didn't have that memo.
A car was waiting for us to take us to Mission Hills that was only 20 minutes away from the airport. Once on the complex, Mission Hills has a marketing program showcasing a family environment. Pictures of mom and dad playing golf, kids swimming, spas, everything for a vacation. Mission Hills is phenomenal. Everything from the hotel rooms, club house, and all facilities are built with skill and detail. Currently there are ten 18 hole courses completed.
Hosting us was GCBAA member Martin Moore, owner of Flagstick Golf Course Construction & Management. Flagstick was selected as the golf construction managers for the entire Mission Hills Project. They coordinated construction with architects Schmidt & Curley with collaboration with Greg Norman on the Lava Stone Course. This project created 180 championship holes in 24 months, start to finish. Over 20 million cubic meters of earth were moved using at times 220 excavators and 1000 dump trucks working 20 hours a day. 18 shapers were used along with 27 supervisors from Flagstick GCCM. Construction supported 3000 employees per day during peak construction.
We had the opportunity to meet the superintendent of all 10 courses Komson Thanavuth. Komson has many unique challenges with the most obvious being allowed an organizational chart to create a team to facilitate operations of at the facilities. Using the resources he has, Komson keeps the courses looking the best as possible, but each day not knowing what tournament may be scheduled on what course, and not having a full time agronomist or equipment manager to assist, he keeps MH as a top notch facility. At some point the management will understand the need to maintain all aspects of course maintenance.
Having to be dragged away from MH, we loaded into a van with a private Chinese driver to head 1 hour south on the island to Nanlihu Golf Course. The course was built approximately 20 years ago and was in very poor playing condition. It is currently going through a complete wall to wall renovation. Approximately 6000 palm trees were moved to a nursery to be replanted on the course. Additionally several key water features are being constructed to feature the lakeside atmosphere and resort. A new clubhouse will also be constructed with the course to be open for play in early summer 2012. This site was interesting in that local contractors were hired for construction. Questionable business practices are used to "earn" the bid for the work. Construction schedules are not used and coordination of earthwork, irrigation install, sodding, and grow-in would not be possible if it were not for a management group to be brought in to manage. Project Manager Tim Zirkle with Flagstick provided the tour of the course. The course links around a finger of Lake Nanlihu, the largest lake on the island. We were hosted by General Manager William Wu and through our translator, we were able to discuss the golf market in China. Mr. Wu asked if we felt there is any success in the United States by allied associations involved in golf to coordinate efforts with national leaders. I shared with Mr. Wu the successes of We Are Golf and the coordination Golf 20/20 provides to the partners. I explained how through coordinated efforts we are able to uniform all share information to policy makers.
After Nanlihu we continued south towards the town of Wanning to visit The Dunes Golf Course nearly ready to open. Being along the coast and with the owner wishing for as many holes to follow the coastline, architect Tom Weiskopf was able to create some accessional views, challenging holes, and a dramatic change for the golfers playing the 36 hole facility. As the sun was setting, we raced around the entire facility in our carts trying to see each hole. Kirk Buchanan showed us the turf shipped overseas from Georgia (Phillip Jennings Turf Farms). Platinum Paspalum was selected for the entire course allowing for some greens variation based on mowing along with fairway varieties for layout. While touring the course we met the course superintendent along with agronomist Ron Carlyle with Carlyle consulting. Ron is assisting the superintendent with grow in and is available to courses in the region that need support. In visiting with Ron, he was origionally from the US and had moved over a number of years before. He shared the same story of superintendents and owners not willing to put the effort towards maintenance. He says a number of courses greatly suffer because there are not educated or qualified in maintenance. Saturday morning we head towards Sanya to visit YaLong Bay Golf Course.
If you have not done so, you need to visit our Facebook page to view pictures of this trip.
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