China, a country once renowned for its proletarian pride, is experiencing a surge in that most patrician of sports: golf.
Over the weekend, 22-year-old Chinese golfer Feng Shanshan claimed women’s golf’s LPGA Championship title by shooting 6-under-par for the week, becoming the first Chinese player to win a major tour event and title.
As if that weren’t enough, 14-year-old Chinese golfer Andy Zhang made history of his own on Monday by becoming the youngest player ever to qualify for this week’s U.S. Open after Briton Paul Casey withdrew because of a shoulder injury.
“It’s going to be a great experience, hitting balls next to Tiger [Woods],” Zhang, who also played a practice round with this year’s Masters winner Bubba Watson, told ESPN, noting his surprise that the older pros had been “very nice” to him and were giving him good tips. “I need to make sure I’m not in a dream right now.”
The triumphs of Feng and Zhang are a boon to China’s global sporting ambitions, though they’re the sort of development that probably sets Mao Zedong’s waxen body to spinning it its glass case on Tiananmen Square. Despite some claims that the sport was invented in China, golf was banned under Mao as a bourgeois indulgence. Even now, with the Communist Party having embraced entrepreneurs and luxury brands rushing to cater to the country’s nouveau riche, the sport remains a somewhat controversial hobby due to concerns over the growing tracts of precious arable land being appropriated to build courses.
That history is likely one reason that China– which reportedly only opened its first golf course in 1984 – hasn’t experienced the same success in the sport as some of its neighbors.
While Asian peers like South Korea dominate the golf circuit—the country has 24 golfers in the LPGA’s top 100—Ms. Feng is the only mainland Chinese golfer to appear on either the men’s or women’s top 100 rankings (though Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng is the women’s No. 1).
Estimates show the number of golfers in China ranges from 300,000 players to 3 million—still just a drop in the bucket in a country of 1.3 billion. But with golf set to reappear in the Olympics in 2016, the country known for coveting gold medals is placing a new emphasis on the sport.
One example of that effort, highlighted in a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency earlier this month, is a school in southern China’s Zhuahi city in Guangdong province that offers free golf training to kindergartners. Letting “children get in touch with golf is a good trial,” Liu Tie, head of the Industry Planning and Development Department of the Zhuhai Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, told Xinhua.
Helping to fuel the interest is the growing number—and increasing outlandishness—of golf courses in the country like the world’s largest Mission Hills golf club on southern Hainan Island, which continue to be built despite a nationwide moratorium on new courses.
Most recent available statistics suggest China has around 500 18-hole courses, compared with more than 15,000 in theU.S.
For her part, Feng told the LPGA she hopes that her success can help to inspire young golfers in Chinathe way tennis champion Li Na has.
“Hopefully [my win is] going to help golf in Chinabecause I want to be [tennis star] Li Na for golf in China. I want to be like a model that the other juniors can follow my steps and get on the LPGA,” she said. “There are good players fromChina, young players, right now. I became the first one, but I’m sure there will be a second, third, more people winning in the States and winning majors.
“I think, you know all of the Asians are good. That’s what my parents told me. All of the Asians are good at controlling small things. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I will say if Koreans can, Chinese can, and golf in China is really growing up and getting more popular. I believe in the futureChinawill be one of the strongest countries on golf.”
Source http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/06/13/chinese-golfers-make-strides-on-pro-circuit/#mod=googlenews_wsj
Over the weekend, 22-year-old Chinese golfer Feng Shanshan claimed women’s golf’s LPGA Championship title by shooting 6-under-par for the week, becoming the first Chinese player to win a major tour event and title.
As if that weren’t enough, 14-year-old Chinese golfer Andy Zhang made history of his own on Monday by becoming the youngest player ever to qualify for this week’s U.S. Open after Briton Paul Casey withdrew because of a shoulder injury.
“It’s going to be a great experience, hitting balls next to Tiger [Woods],” Zhang, who also played a practice round with this year’s Masters winner Bubba Watson, told ESPN, noting his surprise that the older pros had been “very nice” to him and were giving him good tips. “I need to make sure I’m not in a dream right now.”
The triumphs of Feng and Zhang are a boon to China’s global sporting ambitions, though they’re the sort of development that probably sets Mao Zedong’s waxen body to spinning it its glass case on Tiananmen Square. Despite some claims that the sport was invented in China, golf was banned under Mao as a bourgeois indulgence. Even now, with the Communist Party having embraced entrepreneurs and luxury brands rushing to cater to the country’s nouveau riche, the sport remains a somewhat controversial hobby due to concerns over the growing tracts of precious arable land being appropriated to build courses.
That history is likely one reason that China– which reportedly only opened its first golf course in 1984 – hasn’t experienced the same success in the sport as some of its neighbors.
While Asian peers like South Korea dominate the golf circuit—the country has 24 golfers in the LPGA’s top 100—Ms. Feng is the only mainland Chinese golfer to appear on either the men’s or women’s top 100 rankings (though Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng is the women’s No. 1).
Estimates show the number of golfers in China ranges from 300,000 players to 3 million—still just a drop in the bucket in a country of 1.3 billion. But with golf set to reappear in the Olympics in 2016, the country known for coveting gold medals is placing a new emphasis on the sport.
One example of that effort, highlighted in a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency earlier this month, is a school in southern China’s Zhuahi city in Guangdong province that offers free golf training to kindergartners. Letting “children get in touch with golf is a good trial,” Liu Tie, head of the Industry Planning and Development Department of the Zhuhai Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, told Xinhua.
Helping to fuel the interest is the growing number—and increasing outlandishness—of golf courses in the country like the world’s largest Mission Hills golf club on southern Hainan Island, which continue to be built despite a nationwide moratorium on new courses.
Most recent available statistics suggest China has around 500 18-hole courses, compared with more than 15,000 in theU.S.
For her part, Feng told the LPGA she hopes that her success can help to inspire young golfers in Chinathe way tennis champion Li Na has.
“Hopefully [my win is] going to help golf in Chinabecause I want to be [tennis star] Li Na for golf in China. I want to be like a model that the other juniors can follow my steps and get on the LPGA,” she said. “There are good players fromChina, young players, right now. I became the first one, but I’m sure there will be a second, third, more people winning in the States and winning majors.
“I think, you know all of the Asians are good. That’s what my parents told me. All of the Asians are good at controlling small things. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I will say if Koreans can, Chinese can, and golf in China is really growing up and getting more popular. I believe in the futureChinawill be one of the strongest countries on golf.”
Source http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/06/13/chinese-golfers-make-strides-on-pro-circuit/#mod=googlenews_wsj
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