Developing 'golf island' with eye on Olympic gold

It's chilly and wet back home in Sichuan province, but Chen Ming cheerfully tees off in shorts on a sunny palm-lined golf course on China's southern Hainan island.

"The weather here is very good for playing golf - there's the sun, the sand and the beach. That's the greatest advantage," Chen says after a round of golf with friends in the southern resort city of Sanya.

His words could have come straight from the tourism development manual of this island province, which is playing up its tropical climate in a major plan to position itself as a "golf island", the capital of the sport in China.