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<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nThe China Golf Show in Guangzhou concluded on October 16th after a three day run. \u00a0A competing industry event, the Asia Pacific Golf Summit in Bangkok, reduced the number of exhibitors in Guangzhou.\u00a0 Compared to last spring\u2019s Beijing Golf Show, the Guangzhou event was small and less vibrant, but it nonetheless showcased the qualities that have made China\u2019s golf economy the most dynamic in the world. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
First, a lot of young people attended, drawn by golf\u2019s glamorous status in China.\u00a0 \u201cGolf\u201d and \u201cglamour\u201d are words not normally yoked in the west, but golf is a \u201cluxury brand\u201d in China, and that gives it cachet.\u00a0\u00a0 When westerners speak of golf as an elitist game, they\u2019re not praising it.\u00a0 But in China, the lust for luxury brands, which drives the huge knock-off market in purses and watches and other consumer goods, also motivates young people to work hard and achieve\u2014old-fashioned virtues whose animating power has diminished in the west.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Young people in China dream of playing golf because they believe doing so certifies success.\u00a0 \u00a0The trajectory is plain: work and study hard, get a good job, buy a house, buy a car, join a golf club.\u00a0 Given that there are still only 400 or so golf courses in China (and any reliable census is elusive because courses built without official government approval \u00a0intentionally fly under the radar), while there are tens of millions of young people focused on getting ahead, the demand curve for golf will continue to point almost straight up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are little signs here and there that the government\u2019s official skepticism of golf development (undermined a bit by the reality that every successful business tycoon and most top government officials play golf) will soon be lifted, a consequence primarily of the legitimacy bestowed on golf as an athletic endeavor by its status as an Olympic sport.\u00a0 Most people close to the Chinese golf scene believe the day is at hand when golf development will receive the general blessing of the central government, launching a boom that will echo the US golden age of the 1920s, when golf ceased being a novelty and courses were built in thousands of communities across the USA.<\/p>\n
No city proclaims China\u2019s rapid ascent as a global economic power over the last three decades louder than Guangzhou\u2019s neighbor, Shenzhen, which is also the epicenter of China\u2019s golf boom.\u00a0 There are more courses in the Shenzhen-Guangzhou area of Guangdong province than in any other region of China.\u00a0 The famous Mission Hills complex is here, and many golf course management companies, course builders, and design firms (often under the umbrella of a single company) have headquarters in Shenzhen. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s astonishing about Shenzhen, the closest mainland town to the then British colony of Hong Kong when Deng Xiaoping designated it a \u201cSpecial Economic Zone\u201d in 1979, is its growth over the last three decades: 30,000 then, and perhaps as many as 18 million now\u2014no one knows for sure.\u00a0 The city knocks down mountains as it swells across the landscape. \u00a0Even natives get lost because Shenzhen constantly refreshes itself.\u00a0 A magnet for the most ambitious and talented people, modern Shenzhen\u2019s pioneers bequeathed to their descendents a tradition of exhilarating growth.<\/p>\n
\u00a0It\u2019s less than an hour\u2019s flight from Shenzhen down to Hainan Island, where a boom in officially sanctioned golf course projects is underway.\u00a0 Tom Weiskopf is doing a course there, as are Coore-Crenshaw, and the ubiquitous Schmidt-Curley, architects of the second Mission Hills, this one in Haikou.\u00a0 The Hainan version hits the world stage with next week\u2019s Star Trophy<\/a>, announced last spring as \u201ca ground-breaking Celebrity Pro-Am tournament featuring several of the biggest names in entertainment and sports and the richest individual prize in Asian golf.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg Norman, Annika Sorenstam, and the Ryder Cup captains Colin Montgomery and Corey Pavin are among the twenty professionals competing for a $1.28 \u201cwinner-takes-all\u201d prize, along with their pro-am partners and a cluster of Hollywood celebrities.\u00a0 The Mission Hills\u2019 team has always been great at promoting its projects, and the Star Trophy confirms the Mission Hills Group\u2019s stature as the most innovative and visionary golf development company in Asia.<\/p>\n