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 Made in China
How one Asian company is changing the face of golf
BY THOMAS BEDELL
It is fitting that a statue of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy and Compassion overlooks the 18th hole of the Olazabal Course at the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, China. Fitting, in that golfers can always use a little mercy. Fitting, too, in that the representation of Guanyin towers at more than 80 feet tall, and like everything else at Mission Hills, is outsized to stunning proportions.
Mission Hills, about a half hour north of Hong Kong, entered the Guinness World Records in 2004 as the world’s largest golf facility, when it had a mere 10 course s. Last summer, two more opened. The courses are named after greats of the golf world, several making their design debuts (Annika Sorenstam, David Duval, David Leadbetter), though most were done in collaboration with golf architects Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley of Schmidt-Curley Design of Scottsdale. “There are eight courses at Pinehurst, built over 80 years,” said Curley. “We did 10 in about nine years, a pace and a scale that still amazes me. We basically did five courses at once in one year, with 2,500 people working in two 10-hour shifts seven days a week, 750 dump trucks moving more than 25 million cubic meters of dirt. Nothing like this has ever been done before.”
Building the pyramids may compare, the difference being that this time the workers were paid. Putting five Central Parks together would approximate the size of the more than 4,500-acre resort, and probably look about as patchwork. Though it’s all contiguous, there’s no real way to go directly from one side of the complex (and it is a complex) to the other except through near-jungle. Consequently, there are three clubhouses: the Shenzhen Clubhouse on the western side to serve five courses, Mid-Valley Clubhouse in the middle section for two courses, and the Dongguan Clubhouse on the eastern side for five courses, and it takes about a half hour to get from one to the other.
The Dongguan Clubhouse perpetuates the Mission Hills trend toward the superlative: It’s the largest clubhouse in the world at 680,000 square feet, fronted by the beatific Guanyin. There are eight restaurants at the luxury resort, 51 tennis courts, four spa locations, two swimming pools, and two golf academies.
 Mission Hills is the vision of Dr. David Chu, a Hong Kong native who raised his family in Toronto, but returned to invest in mainland China in 1979, making his fortune running the country’s largest corrugated packaging company. He opened Mission Hills in 1994 with the Jack Nicklaus-designed World Cup Course, promptly deemed one of the best in Asia, and which fittingly hosted the World Cup of Golf in 1995. (Mission Hills hosted the OMEGA World Cup of Golf again this past November, and will continue to do so through 2018 — curiously, not at the World Cup course, but the Olazabal Course.)
According to Chu’s son, Ken, “We didn’t build 12 courses for the sake of setting a record. We built them because of demand.” Chu estimated there were about 3 million golfers in the country, and only 376 courses. “Demand exceeds supply, and demand is growing.”
There’s little question that the next boom in golf is likely to be driven by China, and Mission Hills is the engine. Schmidt-Curley Design recently opened an office in Haikou on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. “We have 20 projects in the works in China,” said Curley.
Mission Hills is essentially private, although play is open to the increasing number of international travelers who stay at the resort. There are nearly 10,000 members, many from all parts of China, since the more temperate south permits play all year, unlike Beijing and Shanghai. There are different levels of membership, but a full 12- course membership costs about $175,000, and there have been takers.
“People become addicted to golf,” said Ken Chu. “It’s the green opium.”
I had no idea what he meant; all I knew was that when I prepared to travel to China for a week in early November, I immediately began pacing the floor, wondering if I’d actually be able to play all 12 of the Mission Hill courses.
Two courses were quickly eliminated, the Olazabal Course being readied for the World Cup, and the Els Course closed for routine maintenance. That left 10 to conquer. But at the resort, my routine was simple: up before six, a leisurely breakfast, 18 holes, lengthy lunch, 18 holes, lengthy dinner, fall asleep on my feet, and the same routine the next day. The Annika and Vijay courses fell by the wayside.
 Mission Hills is an impressive daily feat of human engineering. There are 10,000 employees, all held to a high standard. “There’s no room for failure,” said Ken Chu, who appears to work as hard as anyone else, and even plays his golf at a dead run. He once clocked a round of 18 holes on the Vijay Course in 56 minutes. (“But it’s the flattest and therefore quickest,” he said modestly.)
I was happy that my first swing in China landed in the fairway of the Leadbetter Course, since that was the one I was playing, though I was still adjusting to travel fatigue and the sheer impact of the Mission Hills logistics. There was a sense of incongruity, as well, pondering the opulent environment and lavish homes surrounding the courses (some valued at $20 million) being in China at all.
The uniformed, red-clad ranks of caddies stood at attention near the golf course staging areas. The 3,000-strong caddie force, all women mostly in their mid-twenties, is a vital part of the golf experience. Each player is assigned a caddie who rides on the back of the golf cart and is indefatigable in her duties, if usually a little shaky with English. (Still better than my Chinese, of course, although I did learn “Kàn gíu!” for “Fore!”)
Once out on the Mission Hills tracks, it’s just golf, of course, with some fecund tropical vegetation and snake warning signs added for spice. But the impressiveness of the achievement remains, because the courses themselves are of such distinct and highly agreeable character.
Brian Curley suggested that the Faldo and Olazabal courses are emerging as favorites. The Norman Course is one everyone wants to play (at least once) because the mandate was to build one of the toughest courses in Asia, and it is — beautiful, but death to high handicappers.
Four of the courses are equipped for night golf, so I tackled the Ozaki Course well after sundown one evening. I played a few holes of the Duval Course with executive director Tenniel Chu, and enjoyed some of the classic golf hole replicas on the par-3 course, the Zhang Lian Wei (named after China’s highest-ranked golfer, pronounced, oddly enough, like “John Elway”). Only the Pete Dye Course warranted a bit of criticism due to its extreme mounding and odd strategic choices.
According to recent forecasts by the World Tourism Organization, China should overtake France as the world’s top tourist destination by 2020. Mission Hills strongly suggests golf will play its part.
Indeed, Andre Dupont, a Canadian lured out of retirement to oversee Mission Hills tournaments, could barely contain his own astonishment: “I’ve never seen anything like Mission Hills, because there is no place like this. It’s a city, really.”
And yet, Dupont said, there were plans afoot for another golf resort, Hainan Island, that would make Mission Hills look puny. This amazing aside, along with the news that the Schmidt-Curley team had opened that office on Hainan Island, soon fed the rumor that the Chus were planning a complex of 36 golf courses.
No one would remotely confirm this, but no one out-and-out denied it, either. Thirty-six golf courses in one place? Goddess of Mercy!
ON YOUR MISSION
MISSION HILLS GOLF CLUB Once at the resort and
golf club, you need never leave for food or entertainment.
011-852-2122-1616, www.missionhillsgroup.com
Brian Curley, who as the main architect for all the Mission
Hills courses has logged more travel time than Gary Player,
has compiled these fine choices should you want to leave
Mission Hills, anyway:
SHENZHEN The V-Bar nightclub in the Crowne Plaza Hotel
is the late night choice. 011-86-755-2693-6888, www.ichotelsgroup.com
HONG KONG It’s just over five dollars to ride the Star Ferry across
Victoria Harbour. 011-852-2367-7065, www.starferry.com.hk
Once there, take a tram up to The Peak for the spectacular city
overlook. 011-852-2849-7654, www.thepeak.com.hk
Lan Kwai Fong is the lively nighttime bar street scene in Central
Hong Kong (www.lankwaifong.com). The Wanchai district is
for a more adult, underbelly view of the city.
KOWLOON Had enough Chinese cuisine? Grab a steak at Dan
Ryan’s Chicago Grill. 011-852-2845-4000, www.danryans.com
Ned Kelly’s Last Stand is an ex-pat pub with a lively big band
banging out jazz standards in grandly entertaining style.
011-852-2376-0562 — T.B. |
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