Travel
Developing 'golf island' with eye on Olympic gold
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-26 10:52
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Golf courses sprout like mushrooms across Hainan. |
"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.
Golf courses have sprouted like mushrooms across the country as the sport catches on, but no place has hitched its wagon to the sport's boom quite like Hainan, which resembles an oval golf green on a map of the South China Sea.
A decade ago, there were no golf courses here; today there are more than 20 and long-term goals include an eventual 100 courses, or about one-fifth of China's current total.
For some golf operators, expansion cannot come fast enough, especially in winter when icy weather across much of the country sends golfers to Hainan in droves.
"Year after year we have found it really tough in winter to satisfy golfers' demands," says Deborah Jiang, deputy manager of the 18-hole Yalong Bay Golf Club, one of the island's first courses.
Jiang says the club hosted 40,000 rounds of golf last year - double the number just a few years ago - and will soon build another 18 holes to handle growth.
The economic crisis has stemmed the flow of South Korean and Japanese golfers who formerly made up 80 percent of the island's business in the sport, Jiang says.
But the growing number of mainland golfers has filled the gap.
"If I want to go golf in Thailand, I can, but this is more convenient," says Chen, the Sichuan businessman.
"I can just catch a flight without needing a visa. It's an advantage to not have to go abroad to play golf."
From the first course built 25 years ago, China now has at least 500, the vast majority built in the past few years, according to the government.
The potential for Hainan golf contracts was a factor in leading American golf course designer Schmidt-Curley's decision to open a head China office in Haikou, the island's capital.
"Hainan will be one of our stronger markets in China for some period of time," says company co-founder Brian Curley, who sees golf on the island driven largely by proliferating real estate developments centered on courses.
With last month's decision to add golf to the 2016 Olympic Games, expectations are high on Hainan that China will launch a new drive to develop golf in a bid to dominate yet another Olympic event.
"With golf coming back to the Olympics, we all hope that in the near future we can get more support from the central government to help golf clubs grow," says Jiang.
