The China syndrome

As the Chinese economy explodes, so is the golf market. The popularity of the sport has increased exponentially in the country during the past 10 years. Golf courses are being built in grand fashion to keep up with the demand. Brian Curley of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Schmidt-Curley Design is in the middle of the boom. He estimates he’s traveled to Asia – mostly China – about once a month for the past 12 years, overseeing the design and construction of courses.

One of the focal points of the golf scene there is Mission Hills Golf Club, a complex of 12 courses – 216 holes in all – within a two-hour drive from Hong Kong.

Schmidt-Curley Design has had its hand in all the courses there, designing 10 of them and working on the renovation of the other two. The firm has worked with golfers including Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Jose Maria Olazabal, Nick Faldo, David Duval and Annika Sorenstam on the projects. The complex was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest golf club in 2004. The magnitude isn’t just for show.

“There’s a statistic that there’s something like 200 million people are within a four-hour dive – that’s basically the population of the U.S.,” Curley says.

Everything’s bigger in China to accommodate the huge population, he says, adding restaurants are commonly as big as Wal-Marts. The same holds true for golf courses.

“Thirty-six-hole courses are a dime a dozen here,” Curley says. “Eighteen-hole courses are an anomaly.”

Even if golf in China doesn’t have as high of a participation rate as the U.S. does, China’s population is so huge, there’s no problem keeping rounds numbers up.

Conditioned thinking

Visitors who come to China to golf won’t find the course to be anything foreign.

“You can take any of those courses off the face of the earth and put them back down somewhere else, and they can go anywhere and compete with anything,” Curley says.

In fact, many courses in China are superior to courses elsewhere in the world, Curley says. Still, many players and golf course operators are new to the sport and don’t know what superior golf course conditions look like, so perceptions are contrary to that of the golf culture in the U.S.

“We’re trying as hard as we can to increase the level of expectations of what good course conditions are,” Curley says. “A lot of golfers in the area have never played golf anywhere else. When the course is green and lush, it might not be as green and lush as someone from Scottsdale would like, but for someone from that part of the world, it’s fantastic.”

Superintendents from the U.S. might see the Chinese golfers’ mindset as a blessing, but Curley says he hopes expectations increase so the quality of the courses will improve. The same goes for golf course design. Many of the golf course architects in China are still learning what makes a good golf course, which is why Curley has been called in to redesign some of their courses.

As Mission Hills becomes more prominent in the international media, more people are becoming aware of the golf industry in China and expectations are rising, he adds. Golf course maintenance equipment is the same caliber that exists on courses like Augusta, so the potential is there for top-notch course conditions.

The climate can be a challenge in some parts of the country, but it’s not unlike the U.S. in that different parts of the country have different climates. The southern portion of the country experiences a tropical climate, making warm-season grasses the best fit for courses there. The courses can be played year-round, unlike up north where the courses shut down about four months of the year because of the weather.

The part of the Chinese golf experience that looks different from the Western version of the game is the clubhouse. Where the rest of the world seems to have downsized clubhouses, China has gone the other way, Curley says. He describes the facilities as an extension of the guests’ lifestyle. The buildings, as large as 60,000 square feet, are sometimes adorned with wall-to-wall marble and often include a business center, a spa and other amenities.

Chinese golf course operators are able to maintain clubhouses this way because staffing generally isn’t a problem as it can be in the U.S. Labor is cheaper there, and employees are given room and board at the course. If extra employees are needed on a given day, they can be called on.

Golf course jobs are coveted. This is especially true of the caddy positions, which usually are filled by girls.

“Those girls make more money in a month caddying than they ever would make working in an office or factory,” Curley says.

Ground control

The success of Mission Hills has much to do with the location and number of people in the area, Curley says. Many of the multitude of products that are made in China are made in the area surrounding Mission Hills and put into containers and sent from Hong Kong.

“It generates a huge amount of business opportunities for ex-pats to come in and run factories,” Curley says.

These people have money and free time, so many become part of the golf community. This includes members and course owners. As the game of golf becomes more popular and a larger percentage of the population joins the middle class, people view golf as a business opportunity.

The number of new courses being established in the near future could diminish soon. With a population that has climbed past the 1-billion mark, China has to keep a close watch on land usage. It encourages dense multistory buildings rather than suburban sprawl with homes and businesses spread out.

With this many mouths to feed, farms are given priority for fertile land. Golf courses are often relegated to the unfarmable land, including hillsides.

There’s a moratorium in place on building golf courses as the country tries to protect its good farmland. At the local level, cities looking for more opportunities to lure tourists are fighting it. Curley is still working on projects there, so the moratorium hasn’t affected his firm much.

There’s no telling what the future of golf in China will look like.

“There could easily be a point in time where the government just says no more golf courses,” Curley says. “Who knows?”

What’s more likely, he says, is that the golf industry will continue to grow as the country’s economy grows.

“Golf grows because of business, and business grows because of golf,” he says.