Golf in the Year of the Rat

By John Barton
Editor-in-Chief, Golf Digest International
Photo By J.D. Cuban August 2008

It's 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the day before the China Open starts, and a press conference is taking place in the media center at the CBD International Golf Club, on the outskirts of Beijing. Liang Wen-chong, 29, the best Chinese golfer, is holding court. He provides long answers in Mandarin. Through an interpreter, each one becomes a single sentence in English. For Westerners in China, so much gets lost in translation.

"What does Liang need to work on to improve this year?" he is asked. The translated reply is strangely cryptic: "Golf is a learning process," says the interpreter. "If he goes for one goal, he may have to forfeit another."

Liang arrived back in China from America three days earlier, having been only the second Chinese golfer to compete in the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. It was, he says, "a learning experience." He played a practice round with Gary Player, who told him he needed to exercise more, and to learn how to speak English. He enjoyed every minute, even though he missed the cut by seven shots. "Overall I was very happy," he says. He hopes to do well this week, in his national championship.

Not counting Liang, the press officer, translator, two cameramen and a security guard, there are 10 people in the room. Only about half of those look like journalists, armed with a notepad and pen, mostly young women. Some of the Chinese press, I later learn, often have to be enticed to golf events with a goody bag and even a small appearance fee. Liang is clearly not yet considered a star, even in his homeland.

He should be. His story is pure Hollywood -- how the son of a poor rice farmer came to walk Augusta's luxuriant fairways. "By luck or coincidence," Liang later explains on the patio, "I lived near a golf course." This was the Arnold Palmer-designed Chung Shan Hot Spring Golf Club in the south of the country, near Macau, the first post-Mao course to be built in the People's Republic of China, opened in 1984.

"My mother used to work on the grounds, picking weeds by hand, and she would sometimes bring back golf balls that she found. And when I was about 12 or 13, I would swing at the golf balls with sticks and branches that we used for firewood." Liang is trim, fit and friendly, his face never far from a smile. He was born, according to the Chinese zodiac, in the Year of the Horse, which supposedly ensures that he's cheerful, astute and adaptable, among other qualities.

Chung Shan club officials were looking to promote golf to a country that knew absolutely nothing about it. They started in some of the local village schools, looking to recruit a small team of promising youngsters and teach them about the game. "All the kids were lined up and invited to swing a club," recalls Aylwin Tai, the general manager of the club at the time. "We looked at the swing, and we looked at the face. The ones that swung hard and had a look of determination -- those are the ones we chose." Liang was picked on July 11, 1993. He was 14. He broke 100 three months later. Within a year, he broke 80. After another year, he'd broken par. He won the China Amateur three years running and decided to turn pro. Liang was ranked 121st in the world at the start of China Open week, but he's on the rise. He warmed up for Augusta with a tie for 12th at the PGA Tour's Zurich Classic. This summer he becomes the first mainland Chinese golfer to play in the British Open. He'd love to play more on the PGA Tour.

Liang's biggest victory to date is last year's Singapore Masters on the Asian Tour. The first-place check was $183,000, a lot of money for a man of his humble origins, who lives in a modest apartment beside the course where he learned to play. Yet he gave it all away, donating the money to the creation of a junior program at Chung Shan -- an extraordinary gesture.

"Look at me with my background," he says. "I come from a peasant family.

I was lucky. But for most people like me, there's no way you can get a chance to play golf. I want to give something back. We players need to do our duty and educate people here about golf, about the spirit of the game. Otherwise there will only be rich people playing golf."

A HIGH-END BOOM -- DESPITE A BAN

The best golf course in Beijing is a Jack Nicklaus design called Pine Valley, which comes with views of the Great Wall of China, a luxury hotel, a monumentally extravagant building called the White House (Bill Clinton once stayed in the Presidential Suite), a spa, an equestrian center, 45 holes of golf and two enormous clubhouses -- all of it strictly for members and their guests only (membership costs $230,000). The place is like a mini-Versailles. When I visited Pine Valley last November, it was deserted.

Today, however, we are at a newer Beijing course called Bayhood No. 9 (membership: $156,500). Before golf, lunch is served. Seven women in embroidered silk suits line the steps to the restaurant, bow and say "good morning." A phalanx of identically uniformed women then ushers us into one of the chandeliered private dining rooms, proffering greetings and moist towels as we walk. Lunch around a large, orchid-strewn table is lavish. I'm full after the third course -- lobster thermidor -- but there are still five more courses to go. Why is the course called No. 9? "It is the highest number," explains David Kurniawan, the general manager. "In China, it means prosperity."

After lunch, we meet our satin-gloved, silk-trousered caddies. There are eight of them. Each player gets a golf cart, a senior caddie, an assistant caddie and a hand-held GPS unit. My senior caddie -- she's 19 -- says her name is Karen. Her job is to drive the cart, give me yardages, and generally offer encouragement and occasional fortifying cups of ginger tea. My assistant caddie -- Selina -- does all the back-office work, like fetching and cleaning clubs, replacing divots. She always arrives at my ball before I do, with a little golf bag containing an arsenal of carefully selected clubs that I might desire for the upcoming shot. Throughout Asia, caddies are almost always women. Very few of them are encouraged to play the game.