By the end of the Ming Dynasty (1644), all mention
of Chuiwan or Buda had disappeared from contemporary
chronicles. Golf reappeared on the radar with the 1889
founding of the Hong Kong Golf Club, which is home to
three layouts at Fanling in the New Territories, the northern
corner of the former British province.
No doubt golf courses were built at Beijing and Shanghai
to accommodate colonial visitors during the early 1900s, but
records of such constructions were not kept. Eventually all
evidence of the game disappeared under the dead weight of
the communist pall, which did not begin to lift until the mid-
1980s. When it did, the catalysts that hastened an end to the
golfing (and cultural) blackout were Henry Fok, one of the
richest men in the world at the time, and Arnold Palmer.
In the early 1980s, Fok, a Hong Kong tycoon and one of the
political architects of modern China, approached Mr. Palmer
to design the first golf course in post-Revolutionary China.
The product of their union was Chung Shan Hot Springs
Golf Club. Located near Chungshan City in Guangdong
Province in southern China, it officially opened nearly a
quarter of a century ago.
In the intervening 20-plus years there has been a remarkable
boom in golf-course construction in China. Current estimates
put the number of courses in the world’s fastest-growing
economy at more than 400, with perhaps double that number
under construction.
One of them, Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, is
already the biggest golf resort in the world with 12 different
18-hole courses now open for play, all of them designed by
superstars of the modern game.
As recently as the mid-1990s, it was estimated that barely
1,000 Chinese nationals played golf. Now that figure is
comfortably in excess of one million.
Mr. Palmer, famed for his entrepreneurial spirit and
business acumen as well as his ability both as a player and
a course designer, is therefore acutely aware of his unique
position in China's golfing history.
He acknowledges, too, the huge part played by Fok, who
died in 2006 at age 83, and the hundreds of Chinese laborers
who used rakes, shovels and their bare hands to fashion a
championship golf course out of a featureless tract of land.
“We were contacted by the Henry Fok organization in
Japan,” recalled Mr. Palmer. “Mr. Fok had seen our work
in Japan and asked me if I would consider designing him
a championship course in mainland China. I said: ‘Yes, we
would be delighted to.’”
“The land was one half flat and one half severe mountain
slope. All of the features of the course were designed. It was
not what you would call a great or natural golf course site,
and it was a pretty tough build because it involved so much
manual labour. We are very proud of how it all came together
to create what now looks like a very natural site.”
Mr. Palmer met Fok to discuss the history-making project,
and made various site visits during the construction period.
“The fact that it was part of history was one of the reasons I
agreed to design the course. As it has turned out, we really did
lay the cornerstone for golf in mainland China and we are all
very proud of that,” said Mr. Palmer, with obvious pride.
“I met Mr. Fok on two occasions. We had a lunch and a
dinner together. He was a great host and a true visionary for
the game in Asia. Mr. Fok's construction of Chung Shan golf
course was a very high financial risk endeavour, but its success
has always made it the tycoons' club in South China.”
Mr. Palmer remains in awe of the workers who built the
course without the benefit of heavy equipment or much
knowledge of the game.
“The course turned out much better than I expected. It was
built by hand. They had no equipment — bulldozers, trucks,
tractors or loaders,” he said. “Imagine for a moment that this
project was built by men and women using shovels and rakes,
working on a task they had never undertaken before.
“I played the course and was more than satisfied with the
putting surfaces and the strategy being asked of a player on
each of the holes. The golf course has a very nice rhythm.”
Beijing
Palmer’s second Chinese course is as daunting in terms of
work, but this time at least the workers had the benefit of
proper equipment. Still under construction, The Cascades sits
20 minutes due east of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with its
first 18 holes (of a 27-hole design) now open to play. Incredibly,
2.5 million cubic meters of earth had to be moved to transform
the flat site into rolling hills. Now, complete with lakes and
dramatic waterfalls, everyone familiar with the original lay of
the land is simply stunned by the metamorphosis that has
taken place. Moreover, in and around Beijing, there is simply
no other course like it. With the first 18 measuring 7,400
yards, look for the capital city’s future major tournaments to
be hosted here.
Throughout the course, elevated tees provide golfers a
good perspective on each hole, and things get rolling straight
away. Upon leaving the clubhouse, the player is swept along
a magnificent pathway that “floats” on pedestals above a 20-
meter long parabolic shaped waterfall. The effect is immediate,
stimulating and refreshing. It signals your entry into a garden
of golfing delights. Like any good opening hole, the bunking,
movement in the shaping, and character of the putting surface
on the first are restrained but still provide an early indication
as to the design of the remainder of the course. Hole No.6
is a 634-yard, par 5 that looks like you’re driving to Tibet.
Hole No.9 is a 197-yard par 3 that plays downhill to a long
narrow green, flanked on the right by a lake with elegant rock
outcroppings. The tees on the 9th afford the golfer expansive
views of the entire front nine, and the way they cascade down
the edges of the massive waterfall feature makes this hole one
of the signature designs of the course. Hole No.11 is a 563-yard
par 5 where China’s largest and most challenging sand bunker
complex first snakes its way into the fairways and greens of
the back nine holes. Nicknamed “The Intimidator,” this huge
hazard starts at the first landing area of the 11th and then
wraps and coils its way through the fairways and greens of the
next three holes. The majestic scale of the eleventh is readily
apparent; a tee shot with a slight draw will carry deep into
the landing area due to the dramatic falling gradient. Club
selection for the second shot must be thoughtful and accurate
to give any chance of a birdie on this hole. The elevated green
is guarded by deep sand bunkering in front. All pin placements
on this hole are difficult to putt as the surface of the green has
so much subtle movement. The par 3 No.17 hole measures a
modest 131 yards. However, the green sits on an island and,
depending on the tees you play from, lies between 20 and 30
feet below the player. Wind and water are the big hazards, and
the short length only makes club selection and line of flight
more difficult. Behind the green is a line of mature trees that
block the wind on half the green and permit its full impact to
be felt on the remainder. Given that all tee shots will be made
with lofted clubs, no matter how well struck, the line of flight
will only be partially under the control of the player. A gust of
wind or a sudden swirl means that shots that start out good
will often become wayward. So much so that some consider
the sand bunker to the left front of the green more of a bailout
than a hazard. Many rounds will be saved or demolished on
this pretty but tricky little hole.
The 18th is all risk and reward. It’s a 448-yard hole, but the
green lies 340 yards away — if you are willing to attempt to
fly the water that guards the hole from tee to green. The best
pros will be able to drive the green or bite off most of the
dogleg. The hole is set up to tempt the player to reach further
than they might grasp; play a safe tee shot to the generous
landing area and you can capture a par or even a birdie, go
for it and you will be a hero or a zero. One thing is for sure:
as you tap in your final putt you will look around and marvel
at the amazing golf course that surrounds you. This is what
golf is all about and it guarantees a golfing experience like no
other in Beijing.
Kunming
Moving southwest from the capital, bustling Kunming in
Yunnan province is potentially a golf destination that could
one day match the might of Mission Hills. One of the reasons
for this is that Arnold Palmer Design Company has begun
construction on what may become the most memorable 18
holes in the region.
Kunming is already home to Spring City Golf and Lake
Resort, which has two championship courses: the Mountain
designed by Nicklaus, and the Lake by Robert Trent Jones Jr.
With the addition of the mountain-styled, Palmer-designed
Kunming Golf & Country Club, the area is even more certain
to attract visitors, and plaudits, due to the quality of its golf.
Mr. Palmer’s layout embraces a stretch of land where the
imagination can run wild. The opening hole gets your attention
right away, and the tees on holes 3 and 4 cling to the side of
a canyon with greens perched 300 feet above the lake. Only
20 minutes from downtown Kunming, this course certainly
possesses the “wow” factor so beloved of Mr. Palmer’s former
design partner, the late Ed Seay.
The drama is contained in the many peaks, cliffs, canyons,
lakes and streams that help form this challenging 7,214-yard
test of golf. In Mr. Seay’s words, “the holes were there, we just
had to go find them, refine them and beautify what nature
gave us to work with. We did a lot of route plans but we finally
found 18 great holes of golf that minimized earth moving
while taking the golfer through all the natural beauty the site
had to offer.”
Lakes have been added and there has been considerable
strategic shaping of the terrain, but these additions and
refinements complement the rare beauty of the site and
look as natural as the vast areas of the course that remain
untouched. Kunming’s temperate climate and modest altitude
allow for jade-green, cool-weather grasses on the fairways and
ultra-fast, bent-grass greens on this links style layout.
When the XXIX Olympiad unfolds in Beijing this year,
visitors from all over the world will be there — including
the Dutch and the Scots. Will they care about or even
acknowledge Wei Tai and the game of Chuiwan, or will they
be too busy arguing with each other about golf ’s European
origins? Whatever they decide to believe, it’s certain golf in
China will press on regardless with Palmer and his design
team leading the way, just as they have from the modern
rebirth of the Chinese game.