Golf in Asia(1)

The first destination we are going to is China.Golf courses have sprouted like mushrooms across the country as the sport catches on, but no place has hitched its wagon to the sport’s boom quite like Hainan, which resembles an oval golf green on a map of the South China Sea. Hainan is playing up its tropical climate in a major plan to position itself as a “golf island”, the capital of the sport in China. A decade ago, there were no golf courses here; today there are more than 20 and long-term goals include an eventual 100 courses, or about one-fifth of China’s current total. For some golf operators, expansion cannot come fast enough, especially in winter when icy weather across much of China sends golfers to Hainan in droves. “Year after year we have found it really tough in winter to satisfy golfers’ demands,” said Deborah Jiang, deputy manager of the 18-hole Yalong Bay Golf Club, one of the island’s first courses.Jiang said the club hosted 40,000 rounds of golf last year — double the number just a few years ago — and will soon build another 18 holes to handle growth. Sanya, the main resort area, saw six million visitors last year, up 30 percent from 2006, according to government data, with plenty of golf attire mixing with the head-to-toe matching floral print outfits of many Chinese tourists. The economic crisis has stemmed the flow of South Korean and Japanese golfers who formerly made up 80 percent of the island’s business in the sport, Jiang said. But the growing number of mainland golfers has filled the gap. Expectations are high on Hainan that China will launch a new drive to develop golf in a bid to dominate yet another Olympic event. A chief official from the State General Administration of Sport (SGAS) has called for a decrease of the tax on golf clubs to allow more people to take part in the sport, which will return to the Olympics in 2016. “With golf coming back to the Olympics, we all hope that in the near future we can get more support from the central government to help golf clubs to grow, to give us big support,” said Jiang, of Yalong Bay Golf Club. Another good golf resort is Sichuan Province in China. It’s chilly and wet back home at there, but you can cheerfully tee off in shorts on a sunny palm-lined golf course on China’s southern Hainan Island. The weather here is very good for playing golf — there’s the sun, the sand and the beach. That’s the greatest advantage. The Largest Golf Club In The World

Hainan is playing up its tropical climate in a major plan to position itself as a “golf island”, the capital of the sport in China. A decade ago, there were no golf courses here; today there are more than 20 and long-term goals include an eventual 100 courses, or about one-fifth of China’s current total.

For some golf operators, expansion cannot come fast enough, especially in winter when icy weather across much of China sends golfers to Hainan in droves.

“Year after year we have found it really tough in winter to satisfy golfers’ demands,” said Deborah Jiang, deputy manager of the 18-hole Yalong Bay Golf Club, one of the island’s first courses.Jiang said the club hosted 40,000 rounds of golf last year — double the number just a few years ago — and will soon build another 18 holes to handle growth. Sanya, the main resort area, saw six million visitors last year, up 30 percent from 2006, according to government data, with plenty of golf attire mixing with the head-to-toe matching floral print outfits of many Chinese tourists.

The economic crisis has stemmed the flow of South Korean and Japanese golfers who formerly made up 80 percent of the island’s business in the sport, Jiang said. But the growing number of mainland golfers has filled the gap.

Expectations are high on Hainan that China will launch a new drive to develop golf in a bid to dominate yet another Olympic event. A chief official from the State General Administration of Sport (SGAS) has called for a decrease of the tax on golf clubs to allow more people to take part in the sport, which will return to the Olympics in 2016.

“With golf coming back to the Olympics, we all hope that in the near future we can get more support from the central government to help golf clubs to grow, to give us big support,” said Jiang, of Yalong Bay Golf Club.

Another good golf resort is Sichuan Province in China. It’s chilly and wet back home at there, but you can cheerfully tee off in shorts on a sunny palm-lined golf course on China’s southern Hainan Island. The weather here is very good for playing golf — there’s the sun, the sand and the beach. That’s the greatest advantage.

The Largest Golf Club In The World

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