Follow money and power: The great golf courses have generally been built when elites with wealth and power have decided to embrace golf. It has worked even better when these elites have some taste, and there is a dominant ideal of what is a desirable golf course.

This was true in the US in the 1920's and is being repeated now here and elsewhere. Though now there are multiple elites and at least two dominant ideals of what is desirable in golf--the minimalist movement and the ever popular grandiose.

I nominate India as most likely to fit these criteria. They have growing mega-affluence in the elites and the potential for a large and prosperous middle class. India also has a magnificent variety of climates and landscapes and in many places lots of water. You could say that China has all these things, but the British tradition tips the balance. India has already embraced tennis and cricket, elite British sports, and I think it would embrace golf as well.

The only question is whether either of these nations could build enough courses for their own populations. Maybe not, and if they can't can golf really develop? It is, after all, a game accessible to all in its birthplace Scotland, and that is pretty much true in the USA now too. This popular access may end up a precondition to quality and quantity of golf. The limited golf--and great golf--Continental Europe comes to mind as an example.

Darkhorse: Mexico

David,

Interesting post. You may have a point about India given their connection to the British Empire - even today. I am not sure, though, whether India is minting millionaires as fast as China.

Time will tell; wisdom and prognostication will not die with me, although pedantic bullshit might.

The thing about China is that the next generation is going to find all the trappings of wealth, power - and yes, sexual promiscuity - impossible to resist.

Red Ferrari, sexy girl and brand new set of Callaways . . . . .

How is the power structure going to get their party youth to put on thick, itchy wool coats and spout a bunch of hooey about "the people this and the people that?"

It will sound as hollow as that nutbag in Chinatown here in S.F. who stands on the corner of Grant and Broadway with a megaphone, ranting against western culture while he smokes American cigarettes, wearing Nike shoes.

Political dogma has no chance long term when competing with technological gadgets, fine booze and the opportunity to make enough jing to go out to clubs and meet hot pussy.

This goes a bit afield, but I went to USC in the late 70's and early 80's, when we had an enormous population of Iranian students. Each was invariably vocal in their anger at all things American - marching in Westwood and making a nuisance of themselves.

Yet, the parking lot of the Iranian Student Union looked like a Pontiac Trans Am dealership and all that pious, hypocritical adherence to their Muslim horseshit never seemed to extend to the local fern bar, where they drank like fish in their tailored threads, snarling about how America was an evil place.

The closest I ever came to seeing one of those towel heads on a prayer rug was on their knees puking in the bathroom.

So my point is that no totalitarian government, be it a theocracy or otherwise, can survive long term against the march of our Western Culture. They can pretend for a while, but people eventually do what they want whether the Mullahs approve or not.

The same will be true for China - really all of Asia. Golf already has an enormous foothold in South Korea . . . . . the only thing standing between them and the Chinese market is one piss-ant, sawed off little faggot to the north. The next time Kim Jong-il rattles his saber at anybody, I bet he is going to quickly find it shoved in his posterior.

The Chinese are not stupid; fellow communist or not, he is a loose cannon and bad for business.  

Get rid of the lunatics in power and all of these countries will take to golf just like they did cell phones and all things risque - it inevitable.

Remember the 9-11 hijackers? What were they doing the night before, reading the Koran? Uh, no, most were swilling booze and finger-banging the pole dancing infidels before they went out and killed a few thousand of us for Allah.

Fads catch on in Asia far faster than Arabia, but the net net is still the same. Neither government can control their people long term, no matter how hard the thumb presses - the horse escaped long ago and there is no going back.

Fifty years from now, China will have its own PGA Tour - funded by the same people who are raking in money with both hands in Macao . . . . . another Communist outpost devoted to capitalism.

Gib

You've really mellowed out during your sabbatical.  Come on, tell us what you REALLY think!

Tommy

Any chance of Notre Dame joining Stanford and Vassar in a new NCAA football conference for girlie schools?

Irhc

I like "diicknozian."  Sort of an Armenian variation of Dickenzian, which briongs us back to Darwin, and to GCA......

While I am by no means a Zhongguo Tong, I have lived in China for three years and been coming here for the best part of a decade.

At present, golf in China is, generally, both crap and expensive. For it to really take off it needs to either be crap and cheap or expensive and good. The latter is much more likely, given golf's status as an elite (and non-Olympic -- which matters here) sport.

However, I am not sure that China will ever take to golf in the same way that Western nations. At grass roots level, it has already been gazumped by, among other things football (ie soccer) and basketball. And in the major cities, the chances of affordable and accessible facilities being developed is very, very small. Even at my club in Beijing, the number of junior golfers playing can be counted on your fingers (no toes necessary)

The game in China will remain an upper middle-class/upper class pursuit. This will fund some fantastic developments over, potentially, some interesting terrain -- like, for example, Kunming's Spring City. However, going forward, China will be more environmentally restrictive than places like, say, Vietnam or Indonesia. And the focus on for-profit clubs (due in part to the massive competing demands for real estate) will limit the growth of the golf-loving benevolent dictator/benefactor (a type that drove so many famous US courses: Augusta, Pine Valley, NGLA etc etc).

Cheap land drove a lot of golf course development in the UK, US and Australia. There's not a lot of cheap, good land in China right now.

Tom, Do you think you could elaborate on why you feel Golf needs to have a  foothold in China?

Adam:

Golf is a great cultural bridge, and it's imperative for us to have more cultural bridges to China.

It is also a game which bridges generations and social status and allows people to be more upwardly mobile, and all of that would be good for China.  But, they have to get past building courses to attract foreign businessmen or sell real estate, and start building courses for Chinese people to play ... and that is a big leap.

Paul:

For 3-5 years out I would agree with your selection -- we get more calls about projects in Mexico and the Caribbean than about projects in the U.S. already.  But, fifty years out, I hope that other countries and regions will have begun to assert themselves.

"Tom P:  I guess where we disagree is the number.  I'm thinking that there will be a year in the not too distant future when there are less than 50 new courses opened in the USA, and numbers-wise, 50 isn't a very big number for China."

TomD:

My God, you sure aren't very optimistic on the future or America are you?

Should I cash out into gold or silver coins one of these days?

Do you plan to or are you going to just go and ply China architecturally?

I'll tell you one forecast about China I might make. If they don't revalue their own currency one of these years they're liable to have a full-blown social revolution on their hands.

Strong economic growth and a wealthy population are not the only things required for courses to be built.  How many courses were built in Japan during their boom period from the 50s through 1990?  How many of them were great?  Same for (West) Germany during the same period?

It will not be Canada as Canada already has a very high golf course/capita ratio.

Eastern Europe is possible but why would it be much different than western europe?

One note on the Ukraine - it appears to be the largest country (at least in terms of population at 49 million) without a golf course.

Can anyone think of a more populous country without a course?  Would there be courses in Iran, Ethiopia, or Congo (all with over 50 million people)?

Gib,

whether the old guard 'likes' golf or not, if as someone pointed out, golf becomes a sport on the world stage that they perceive as a validating endeavor like an olympic sport, they will go for it head long in the old commie way.  They will displace a couple of million people for a dam, they will build a couple hundred golf courses without any profit motive to create an instant training ground for their youth, and declare their methods, superior.  Environmental considerations?  Stroke of the pen...  That could happen before the old guys die off.  But, if the old guys die off first, then the process you describe will still take place, IMHO.  So, China could go golf goofy, either way.  

But, I still like the dark horse Balkans.  It really looks like some interesting golf terrain and climate around the Black Sea.  I don't know if they would make it hard or easy for environmental hurdles or if such a thing as permitting would be an issue.  I don't know what sort of land packages can be assembled.  But, permitting and land packaging is why the EU countries won't see very high growth.

Seems to be a focus on global economics.... rightfully so.

Could an individual architect change a country's landscape?

If Tom D. moved to Bulgaria, for some reason, would that impact the countryside?
Is Norway much better of with Brian working there - among other places?

Or would it need to be a phenom golfer that came from an undergolfed nation?

P.S.   Did the yanks win the pennant yet?  

All you have to do is get two wild and crazy guys like this interested in golf in the Balkans and your in...
Georg and Yortuk Festrunck


They already seem to have been enamored with Johnny Millers clothing.  

Re China news;
Yesterday it was announced that some of China's bigger city's "downtown" areas will no longer be open to automobile traffic. Interesting phenomenon I first heard about during High School Chemistry class 30 years ago.  Will NyC be next?

Adam - if i remember correctly isn't NYC considering charging cars a BIG toll if they enter into the "downtown" area?  hasn't London recently started this, I beliebe....