CHINA: Communist China used to consider golf a decadent way for capitalists to waste their time but China's new leisure-loving rich have different ideas. After two decades of economic growth, plaid trousers and golf shoes have edged out the Mao suits and People's Liberation Army slippers.
These days there are 200 golf courses in China, compared to just 20 in the 1980s, and the golf market is estimated to be worth around €7 billion a year. Two million Chinese tee off on a regular basis, playing the sport some call "Green Opium".
There is no more potent a sign of China's flourishing love affair with the game than the world's biggest golf club, Mission Hills near Shenzhen, which has a record-breaking 180 holes. Advertising hoardings for the giant Mission Hills club are visible soon after you land at the airport in the booming city of Shenzhen, each billboard proudly trumpeting the club's 10 championship courses.
"Easily China could be the biggest world's largest golfing population," says Tenniel Chu, executive director of Mission Hills. "Even if just 3 per cent of the population play golf, that's nearly 40 million players, a huge golfing population already."
Chu is the son of the founder of Mission Hills, David Chu, a Hong Kong industrialist, who has been doing business in China since 1979. He started off in 1994 with a course designed by Jack Nicklaus. More than 10 years later, the Guinness Book of Records lists it as the largest golf club on the planet, replacing 107-year-old Pinehurst in North Carolina, which has eight courses.
The links were designed by the some of the biggest names in the game, such as Nick Faldo, José María Olazabal, Greg Norman, Ernie Els and Jumbo Ozaki.
Mission Hills has about 7,000 members and membership to play all 10 courses costs in the region of €90,000. There is a staff of 6,000, including 2,500 caddies, and on a busy day you can have up to 2,000 golfers playing.
"About 70 per cent of our members come from Hong Kong, another 20 per cent are from the mainland while the rest come from Korea, Japan, Singapore or Taiwan," Chu says.
Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, was one of the focal points of former president Deng Xiaoping's open door policy, which kick-started China's economic miracle in 1979. Mission Hills lies between Shenzhen and Dongguan in Guangdong province, home to 85 million of China's 1.3 billion people and a region which has driven China's runaway economic growth.
Chu realised his vision just in time. Last year the central government in Beijing called a temporary halt to any new golf course developments in China to try and stop unscrupulous officials earmarking agricultural land for development as golf courses, then building houses on the land instead. "The restriction on construction has good and bad elements for us," he says. "Obviously it means people will come here, but we want the game to grow.
The fairways are open for up to 20 hours a day, with night golf facilities available; some members claim to have done 54 holes in a day.
"I really enjoy it, I've been a member for three years," says Kevin Leung, a bag manufacturer from Hong Kong. "It's the biggest club in Guangdong, indeed the world. There are more and more Chinese players coming in. The etiquette of the mainland players is not that high but it's getting better, they seem to understand the regulations better as time goes on."
The club has a three-storey pro-shop, a golfing academy, a five-star hotel, a barrage of tennis courts and a spa. It was the venue for the 1995 World Cup and Tiger Woods played Mission Hill in 2001, the only time he has played in China.
There are now a few notable Chinese golfers around, such as Zhang Lianwei, who became the first Chinese player to compete at the Masters. Universities in China are offering a golf programme and a wave of junior golfers is expected.
"You'll see a top Chinese golfer in five years, if not less," Chu says. "There are top Chinese juniors coming up and you will see more prominent Asian and Chinese players on the tour. And retired government officials are starting to play the game."
On the driving range, Jimmy Ho from Hong Kong is having a lesson with one of the Mission Hills professionals. He says his friends influenced him in his decision to joining the club.
"They were always telling me how good it is," he says, "but study is important, so I come here for lessons. Since I've started coming I've improved very quickly. I manage to play about once a week. But I'm not here for business, I'm here for fun."