Golf course construction in China is going full tilt from the rain forests of Hainan to the Stone Forest in Kunming, but greens fees are not the driving force. The catalyst is the residential real estate that surrounds the courses. Owners splash out on flashy facilities and courses designed by the biggest names in golf. "That ramps up the real estate value," explains American course designer Brian Curley.
Hence, David Chu has plenty of competition. Scattered around Shenzhen are scores of courses. Every big city across China has a dozen; small towns, beaches, even nature resorts are now seeking a slice of the action. Design firms find themselves fully booked. "For the past five years 80% of the work and 90% of our income comes from China," notes Neil Haworth, who heads the Singapore office of golf-course designer Nelson & Haworth.
The growth is rapid despite a moratorium on course construction since 2004. The goal was to limit land seizures, the cause of much civil unrest, and keep vital farmland from being converted to water-thirsty greens. But skirting the law is simple semantics: Courses are dubbed landscaping projects or green housing.
Golfing in China is different in some ways. Fleets of young female caddies pamper the members and their guests; Mission Hills employs 3,000 young women, making the game seem at times more like a hostess bar.
Purists may decry some of the crassness on Chinese courses--traffic jams form at tees as golfers stop to jabber on cellphones as well as to exchange huge wads of money. "That's a big part of golf," chuckles Curley, who grew up in California not far from the famed Pebble Beach links and started as a caddy. "They don't just bet on the games but every hole. And that's really the way golf was meant to be played, hole by hole, every stroke counting."
