As I mentioned in the introductory post(s) to this thread, I went to China to visit family, not to play golf. What I write here is therefore an extremely limited perspective--a snapshot--on the state of the game in an enormous and diverse country.
For some context: Tianjin, my wife's hometown, is the port city nearest to Beijing, and the river that flows through Tianjin to the sea used to be the Huang/Yellow River, which has since changed course. (This is relevant for golf course architecture in the region in that the area is completely flat as far as the eye can tell, from the centuries of alluvial soil deposits.) An important treaty port during the Opium Wars, the city is today experiencing tremendous growth, mostly from the influx of migrant workers from other provinces. Income growth and population growth are together driving up the price of real estate (as in other parts of China), so that an acre of farmland can now be converted into $20 million (U.S.) worth of condos. Such construction projects are visible nearly everywhere one looks.
This is mainland, northern China, and economic liberalization and foreign investment have happened more gradually there than in other parts of China where prominent golf resorts have been developed in the past 20 years. But whether or not a moratorium on new golf course construction is being enforced with any effectiveness, the extremely high cost of real estate in Tianjin and all over China will certainly have major effects on golf course architecture in the country for years to come.
First, the price of real estate means that golf will remain incredibly expensive, as golf course owners will need to charge high greens fees to recoup the costs of the land. I expect that golfers (or prospective golfers) will, in turn, demand golf courses that are visually impressive in the waterfalls and green-grass sense, which will of course translate into higher maintenance costs and still-higher greens fees. (Also, don't forget that water is expensive in China.)
Compounding the issue from an architectural perspective is that developers will want to incorporate more of these visual features to sell more condominiums, too. Advertisements for golf-course housing developments are everywhere in this part of China--at the airport, on the Beijing subway, in restaurants and shopping malls, and it's clear that some entrepreneurs see a huge opportunity for growth of the game in China. So does the PGA Tour: the Chinese equivalent of ESPN2 had live final-round coverage of at least one PGA Tour China event during my stay, as well as a lengthy highlight show (at least an hour, with few if any commercials) of the tour stop at Quail Hollow. Presumably, these are both weekly TV deals.
Regulations, condominiums, and TV contracts aside, the truly limiting factor in the growth of golf in China, for at least another decade, will be demand. The Economist reported recently that only about 2% of urban Chinese households--meaning 1% of all Chinese households--have annual incomes of at least 230,000 yuan (equivalent to $40,000 U.S. in exchange rate terms). While the cost of living in China is generally lower than in the U.S., U.K., or Australia, golf is much more expensive, if the two courses I checked out are at all representative.
The reasons for the high price of playing golf in this part of China are discussed above, but one other factor that might be at play is the kind of cachet a golf course and its customers might gain by charging/paying high greens fees. That, by charging high greens fees, a course might improve its perception and actually be able to draw in more traffic. Maybe. Does anyone have any solid evidence of this kind of thing happening in certain markets or countries?
Again, I only spent a little bit of time in China this year. Dan Washburn has a book coming out in a few weeks called The Forbidden Game (
http://danwashburn.com/forbiddengame/) that should provide a comprehensive look at the state of golf in China right now. Several members of this discussion group have spent more time in China than I have, and even built courses over there. I wish them all the best in their future work there, and hope that the challenges I have described in building good courses begin to subside soon.
As for the golf courses I actually saw on the trip: I happened to get in touch with a guy I used to play junior golf with who's now working in the area, and we played with a friend of his at a course called Binhai Lake, which hosted the China Open in 2012 and 2013. It's advertised as a Pete Dye design, but Curley-Schmidt did the work. An hour west of the city proper, near the port area, the course is built in the middle of a salt marsh dozens of square miles in area on material excavated to construct the eponymous lake. This lake (also very large) borders 10 of the holes, and the setting could be spectacular if the skies and the water were both clear. Of course, the use of such a water body is a kind of double-edged sword in golf course construction. Most of the hole corridors are fairly far from the edge of the lake, presumably to make the course more playable in high winds and for beginners, which was great foresight on the part of its architects. However, on these holes, the lake serves only to improve visual appeal and as a hazard that penalizes horrible shots. Several other holes do include cape elements or otherwise bring water into play as a hazard to be negotiated if aggressive, which are welcome strategic design elements. All in all, this is a good golf course, fair, varied (given that it's on a flat and bleak site), and fun to play, but not one that I recommend anyone make special effort to play, so I will keep comments specific to this course to a minimum.
The second hole involves an Alps-like feature obscuring the green on the first and second shots, and the rear half of the green cants away from the fairway. (The green is behind one of the mounds on the left.)
Many holes feature grass-faced bunkers that for some reason have sleepers in their rear (away from the hole) faces. Please forgive my ignorance, but is there any reason for building bunkers this way other than aesthetics, i.e. photo ops?
Fishermen near the seventh tee.
This picture of the par-5 15th kind of sums up everything:
In the foreground, a Church Pews-style bunker guards the left side of the landing area. In the background, before the high-rises under construction, you can see the reeds that border one arm of the large lake. Houses bordering the golf course are on the left. In front of the houses, in the yellow jumpsuits, are two of our female, college-student caddies, who have driven the carts ahead and parked them on the path. (Caddies are evidently mandatory in China, and they will ride on the back of the cart as the player drives it. If the course has a cart-path-only rule, they'll then carry six clubs to the fairway for you.) This is actually one of the more interesting holes on the course: it's short enough that a well-hit drive will offer the option of taking on the water by going for the green in two, or laying up to face a wedge shot from an uneven lie.
Later in the trip, my wife and I drove by another golf course a couple of miles from my in-laws' place. We passed on the opportunity to play it, knowing that there were better things to do with our time in China and with $125 apiece than play golf on a course where the dominant view was of two enormous power plant stacks. I have to admit that the shaping was well done (on the holes I could see from the entrance road), with natural-looking contours on the completely flat site instead of the typical mounds that line fairways on so many modern courses. However, the conditioning of the course was significantly worse than you would find at most U.S. courses with half that price tag, and however good the design might have been, I have no regrets that we saved our money for other things that day.
Personally, although I enjoyed my round there this spring, I don't think I would have taken up golf if the experience I had at Binhai Lake was the best golf experience available to me as a child. Small wonder that on a Sunday, I didn't see a single junior golfer, nor (as I recall) any women players there. I fell in golf at a very young age because it gave me a chance to spend time walking around outside with my dad, in one of the best natural landscapes in our area. I think my dad, in turn, took up the game for exactly the same reason. With carts and caddies and smog and lakes in play on 14 holes, it just wouldn't have been the same game for me at age 5 or 10 or 15. Surely, Binhai Lake has more interesting architecture than the course I grew up on, but the environment and (human and physical) atmosphere matter, too.
Golf will continue to grow in China as incomes continue to rise, but it won't be the same game that almost all of us came to love. I can only speculate as to the reasons more Chinese will decide to take up such an expensive hobby. Hopefully, as they do, the market for great courses in China will begin to emerge. Some visionaries will surely find unremarkable tracts of land and transform them into compelling golf courses, and even find great land and have the knowhow to turn them into something really special, something that can be economically viable long after the condos are sold. Again, I wish everyone working there or hoping to work there good luck in balancing all of these considerations and challenges.