The Forbidden Game

by Dan Washburn

  “III. Regulating the operation of completed golf courses. We should regulate the golf courses that have been built and put into operation based on clear and verified information, and in accordance with the relevant laws, regulations and policies of the state. The local people’s government at all levels shall take effective measures to strengthen the management of existing golf courses, to strictly control the consumption of water resources by golf courses and to supervise and implement the construction of peripheral environmental protection facilities, so as to ensure environmental protection in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.

  “IV. Strengthening supervision, inspection and guidance. The local people’s government at all levels should strengthen the cleaning-up and regulation of golf courses, where unauthorized construction and illegal use of land are to be punished by the law. The people’s government of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government should submit the results of the cleaning-up and inspection of golf courses to the State Council by February 15, 2004. The Development and Reform Commission shall, in joint efforts with the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Construction, the State Administration of Environmental Protection, the General Administration of Sport, the State Tourism Administration and other departments, pay close attention to research and propose measures on regulating and guiding the healthy development of golf sport and construction of its facilities.”

  *

  This was not the first time China had banned the construction of golf courses. On May 26, 1995, the “Circular of the State Council Concerning the Strict Control of High-End Real Estate Development Projects” introduced a series of measures intended to curb what the government saw as a looming luxury real estate bubble. One of the document’s directives stated that the odd trifecta of “new golf courses, replica ancient cities and amusement parks” was to be “strictly forbidden.” But then, two years before that, Nicholas Kristof had written in the New York Times that, “Pressing ahead with its clampdown on runaway economic growth, the Chinese Government has banned new golf courses and announced that work on some luxury hotels and villas will be halted even though they are already partly built.” It was all beginning to sound rather familiar.

  In fact, the 2004 ban was merely a rehash of a ban already in place, one that had gone largely ignored for more than a decade. Still, it signaled a shift. While the previous prohibitions had lumped golf courses in with a variety of other luxury developments, the 2004 directive targeted golf specifically. It appeared the government was ready to get serious. And this time, when news of the moratorium got out, “everything went cold,” Martin Moore said.

  Well, not quite everything. This was China, after all. One course designer, who’d been working in China since the early ’90s, said his client told him to ignore the ban and carry on with his work. How could the client be so brazen? “My client was the central government,” the designer explained. The course was part of a resort in southern China known to be a holiday retreat for government officials. “I was working on a pet project of the central government, right while they were doing the moratorium,” the designer said. “They were talking out of both sides of their mouth.”

  Few in the industry were spooked by the moratorium. According to Martin, there was an assumption there’d always be someplace building golf courses. Who cared about China? Martin himself had a few projects going forward in Thailand, and golf development in the United States was still “booming full speed.” “I didn’t think much of it,” he said. “I didn’t even think I’d make a career in China. I had no idea I would even do any more courses there.”

  Building golf courses in China was a headache. Thailand was easy by comparison. So, in the years following the big job at Mission Hills, Martin’s focus turned elsewhere. He worked on Schmidt-Curley and Nicklaus jobs close to home, in California, Nevada, Montana and Nebraska. Business wasn’t going gangbusters – he never had more than a few jobs going at once – but it was steady. “I didn’t pay any attention to China,” he said. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind had any idea that China was going to boom. I thought it was all over. I wasn’t going back over to Asia, other than to just vacation.”

  *

  Zhou Xunshu started 2005 with a partial sense of satisfaction. Some months, once he tacked the coaching fees on to his base salary, he earned as much as seven or eight thousand yuan, a fortune to those he’d left behind back in Qixin village. He was living with the woman he loved, who loved him back. It didn’t hurt that he also thought she was the most beautiful employee at Dragon Lake Golf Club.

  But it wasn’t enough. There were still pieces missing, some more jagged than others, and they stabbed at his backside like spurs, pushing him forward. First, there were his parents, with whom he’d had his differences. He’d always blamed the village for that. They are a product of their environment, he told himself, their harsh, antiquated environment. And he desperately wanted to get them out.

  Then there was Zhou’s deep-seated desire to become a certified pro golfer. He knew it was just a title, but if golf was to be his profession, Zhou wanted to be considered among the top in his field. He wanted to compete with the best. Zhou considered himself an athlete, a fighter. He knew how quickly he had advanced in the three years he’d been playing regularly, and he was convinced that if given the opportunity, he could match the country’s top players stroke for stroke. It might take him a few years, but Zhou believed he could win a tournament in China, or, at the very least, finish in the top three, which would earn him his pro card. But there were only a handful of tournaments a year, and they were often poorly organized, with little advance warning.

  When Zhou was feeling hopeless, there was someone he could look to for proof that being a successful Chinese professional golfer was actually feasible. For most of China’s recent history, one man had been known as the nation’s best: Zhang Lianwei. Zhang, like Zhou and many other first- and second-generation Chinese golfers, had stumbled into the game relatively late in life. In 1985, his javelin career over, he was working for the government sports bureau in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, painting lines on soccer fields, racking up snooker balls and doing other odd jobs. He was then presented with the opportunity of working at a new enterprise in the city – the second golf course in Communist China. For three years, Zhang caddied, mowed lawns, raked bunkers and practiced, practiced, practiced. Nearly twenty years later, in 2003, Zhang, who says he is “90 percent self-taught,” became the first Chinese player to win a European Tour event, fighting off Ernie Els to take the Singapore Masters. In 2004, he became the first Chinese player to tee up at the US Masters.

  Zhang may have been a pioneer for golf in China, but he often felt the country did not give him the support he deserved. In April 2005, Zhang got emotional during a press conference following a round of the BMW Asian Open, an international tournament in Shanghai. He announced to the assembled media that he’d never received any state funding during his career; he’d had no domestic sponsors, either. “It’s such an ordeal playing golf in China over the years,” he said, his voice cracking. “It’s tough, it’s difficult, and it’s lonely. I know golf is not an Olympic sport, but I think the sports authorities should at least have shown some kind of support, like air tickets or something, to show their appreciation of my contributions.” Zhang went on to propose that the sport’s governing body in China allocate 10 to 20 percent of its budget to supporting golfers. “Over these twenty years, I have made a lot of money if you look at the checks,” he said. “But you don’t know how much money I have spent to support myself. My sponsorship all comes from foreign companies. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable being supported only by foreign brands. Wherever I go, people look at me and think I represent China. But they don’t know that I haven’t received support from China. With this opportunity, I call for sponsorship from Chinese enterprises.” Zhang closed by saying he felt he “had nothing to lose” by making the state
ment. His remarks came in response to a question about what life was like outside of China’s state-funded sports system. (Moments later, the same question was posed to twenty-six-year-old Liang Wenchong, then a rising star. Liang – perhaps calculating that he had more to lose than Zhang – declined to comment.)

  Zhou knew it was possible. Zhang proved it. He just needed his own chance.

  It was hard for Zhou to contain his excitement when he heard from a friend that a new professional golf tour geared exclusively toward domestic players like him was expected to launch during the summer of 2005. It was called the China Tour, and, a partnership between the China Golf Association and Singapore-based sports marketing firm World Sport Group, it was intended to be an answer to all of the big-ticket international golf tournaments that were popping up in China that rarely featured any Chinese players. “The future for golf in China – the real, long-term future – is not paying large sums to bring the world’s superstars to play here. It is creating our own stars,” the CGA’s vice president, Hu Jianguo, declared to the media.

  The tour, reported to have $8 million in funding, planned to host four events that year, with $100,000 in prize money for each event – a huge amount for Chinese “pros,” even when split across the top players. “There was a need to find a place for China’s golfers,” the senior vice president of World Sport Group, Nick Mould, said. The goal was to make it possible for Chinese players to make a living at the game. The bigger picture was also important: the China Tour was “an investment in the future development of golf in China.” With a population of more than a billion, and fewer people playing golf in the United States and elsewhere, the industry desperately needed a new emerging market.

  Zhou was intent on getting his piece of the action. He knew a limited number of spots would be open to pro coaches like him, and that the official entry form would be posted on the internet “some time in the future.” He wasn’t good with computers or the web. He didn’t understand how people could sit at a desk all day, and he had little patience for technology. Plus, he couldn’t type well – and his stunted education meant he had a limited knowledge of pinyin, the standard system of romanized spelling for transliterating and typing Chinese. In text messages he often got the characters wrong. Even his spoken Mandarin was sometimes less than perfect.

  But Zhou could at least press “enter,” and for a chance at the China Tour, he was willing to put in a little screen time. Liu Yan helped him call up the web page that was supposed to have the registration form on it someday. Every day, without fail, Zhou would refresh the page – again and again – waiting for the download link to appear. When it finally did, he got goosebumps. He felt as though he’d won the lottery, and he hadn’t done anything yet. He and Liu Yan hurriedly filled out the form and submitted it.

  His persistence paid off. He earned one of the final thirty spots in the China Tour. His competitive golf career was finally on the move.

  *

  In June 2005, Zhou and Liu Yan packed up and moved to Chongqing, the massive megalopolis in southwest China. Zhou had been a member of the management team at Dragon Lake for just one year, but it was long enough for him to realize the role – and perhaps the place – were not the right fit for him. He felt out of sorts. He butted heads with leadership. He found the people shrewd and calculating. Off the golf course, Zhou is not one to play games. “How can I get along with people in Guangzhou?” he asked. “I’m a very frank person, more like the people in Chongqing, I think. Things are more straightforward there. Simple and easy.”

  Golf was just starting to catch on in Chongqing, and Zhou thought he’d have more of a chance being a big fish in a small pond, rather than trying to survive in Guangzhou’s crowded golf waters. He landed a job at the Haoyun Golf Club, a driving range in a new development area that had sprouted up around the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center, a sixty-thousand-seat stadium that opened in 2004 and had absolutely nothing to do with the 2008 Beijing Games. Liu Yan got a position working in Haoyun’s pro shop.

  In many ways, Chongqing, famous for its hills, fog and spicy food, encapsulated China’s economic rise. Some called it “Chicago on the Yangtze,” a broad-shouldered gateway for the country’s relentless westward expansion. In another nod to Chicago, Chongqing was infamously corrupt – mafia-style gangs ran many aspects of the city, aided and abetted by crooked local cadres and a double-dealing police force. In 1997, Chongqing joined Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin as the only municipalities directly controlled by China’s central government. By far the largest of the four, Chongqing covered an area approximately the size of Austria.

  Chongqing was a nation within a nation, a city on the move. When Zhou and Liu Yan arrived, it was the world’s fastest-growing urban center, and perhaps its largest construction site, as well. Its deputy mayor told the Urban Land Institute that Chongqing was “just like Shanghai, only ten years behind”; Travel + Leisure magazine had dubbed Chongqing the “city of the future.” In 2005, the city’s population was more than thirty million, with just under half of those people living in its urban core. Some estimates had Chongqing taking on as many as one million new urban residents each year.

  The month Zhou and Liu Yan moved into their new home, the city’s first Wal-Mart opened. Later that year, Chongqing welcomed its second golf course, Sun Kingdom Golf Club, which the government said was part of a “green tourism” push in the southern part of the city. Zhou was heading where the action was, just as he had done when he boarded the train to Guangzhou a decade earlier.

  Zhou played in two China Tour events within months of his move to Chongqing. In September he traveled to Kunming, and, fighting off his nerves, he made the cut, finishing thirty-sixth out of one hundred or so golfers. His score was relatively high – he didn’t shoot par in any round – but so were the scores of all the players finishing outside the top ten. That wasn’t surprising in a country with only two decades of golf under its belt.

  Then, in November, he made his way to Hainan island. He’d heard that there were great courses there, and rumors that there were many more to come. Again, he made the cut, this time finishing thirty-seventh. His prize money didn’t even cover his travel expenses. But Zhou didn’t care. He was in the game.

  *

  Martin Moore’s vacation from Asia ended much sooner than he had expected. In 2006, Ken Chu and Mission Hills were eager to make history again, this time in Yunnan province, a site not too far from Spring City, the course that had first brought Martin to China a decade earlier. On this occasion, the goal was even more audacious: twelve courses, built simultaneously on a tough site, but to be completed in a “generous” thirty-six months. Supposed moratorium on golf course construction be damned.

  Martin knew from past experience that it was useless telling Ken Chu his plans were quixotic. So he tried to figure out a way to make them happen. He assembled another A-team of golf course builders, but this time he recruited one twice the size as the crew that made history building Mission Hills in Shenzhen. Fifteen shapers. Five project managers. They all adjusted their schedules to take part in the biggest golf undertaking anyone had ever heard of. Some had turned down other jobs to work at Ken Chu’s beck and call. And Martin was beginning to admit that the scope of the project had him “freaking out.”

  He was careful to get everything in place, the best you ever could in China, so the project could get off to a solid start. He had visited the site four times. He had the construction calendar carefully mapped out. He asked some members of the team to arrive in Kunming early so they could get used to life in China. He had done everything that could be done.

  And then it was announced that twelve courses had become eight.

  And then the project was on hold.

  And then it was completely canceled.

  The local government had got cold feet. The project was so big, so bold, it was bound to show up on Beijing’s radar. They couldn’t risk the central government cracking down on them.

  Martin wen
t to the members of his A-team and asked if they had a plan B. “I lost money, but more importantly I lost face,” he said.

  The experience taught Martin valuable lessons about operating in China’s legal gray areas: Make sure your employees know everything can go belly-up at any moment. Never guarantee anything.

  Later that year, Martin started to get “the vibes.” Business in the United States was cooling down, and the China market was perking up, despite the supposed moratorium on golf course construction. In the United States, the unprecedented golf course boom – which had peaked with nearly four hundred new courses built in 2000, and well more than sixteen thousand courses in total – was coming to an end. Golf course openings and golf participation were declining sharply. In fact, in 2006 golf course closures in the United States (146) outnumbered golf course openings (119.5) for the first time in sixty years.

  Some in the industry tried to paint the statistics as good news, saying it was just an expected leveling-out after years of overbuilding. For too long the US golf scene had been spurred more by the desire to sell country-club housing than by any increase in demand for the sport. It was simply golf Darwinism, they argued: weaker courses were closing, and golfers in the long run would be better off with a smaller number of higher-quality places to play. But that logic, while perhaps accurate, did little to ease the concerns of those, like Martin, who made their living building golf courses.

  Which explains why Martin was so excited when, in October 2006, he started hearing from developers in China again. First, it was a lead about a course in the mountains. Two months later, it was a course along a beach. The projects couldn’t have been more different, but they shared one thing in common: they were both located in Hainan. Martin didn’t read too much into it. He was just happy that, somewhere on the planet, there were jobs to be chased – and that China’s supposed golf course moratorium was apparently lacking in muscle.