How an LPGA player emerged from China's anti-golf tactics
Before she became the best pro golfer China has produced, Shanshan Feng was already the exception.
In a country in where golf was banned until the early 1980s and the communist government announced in March the closure of 66 golf courses it deemed illegal, Feng emerged to make it on the LPGA tour, including winning the Women's PGA Championship in 2012. Ranked No. 6 in the world, she will try to capture her second major when Women's PGA Championship starts Thursday in Harrison, N.Y.
Unlike a majority of Chinese who come to the game through their wealth, Feng started at 10 years old because her father, Xiong, worked for a local sports bureau and was assigned to captain the junior golf team in her hometown of Guangzhou.
SEE BELOW: A closer look at golf in China
The city, located in South Central China near Hong Kong, is in the province where golf has thrived, a relative measure of success, given the country's complex relationship with the sport. Within a year, Feng surpassed her father — who had learned to play at the same time — and as a 12-year-old aimed to become the first full-time member of the LPGA tour from China.
"I set the goal, but I didn't really think I would get there when I just said it when I was 12," Feng said last week before playing in the Manulife LPGA Classic in Canada, where she finished eighth for her seventh top-10 finish of the year. "Because I was still like a 30 handicap, maybe a 20 handicap, and there weren't any Chinese on the tour or anything, not even close."
Now in her eighth year on tour, Feng, 25, is the only golfer from China, man or woman, to win a major and is its best chance at a medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. But Feng's time as a singular example of golf success for the world's most populous country might be nearing an end.
Despite restrictions imposed by the government and the sport holding virtually no space in the culture of China's more than 1.3 billion population, golf is enjoying tremendous growth in China. Course construction has been booming for a decade even as a moratorium was established — and often ignored — in 2004. Now, the government is simultaneously closing golf courses as it funnels more support to the game with an eye toward the Olympics, which announced it 2009 it would add golf.
"It's very difficult to understand, but I would say the Chinese government is very good at compartmentalizing its attitudes toward golf," says Dan Washburn, author of The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream. "Golf has always had a rocky road in the country."
Feng would know. As a girl, she shuttled to driving ranges after school each day with only enough time to squeeze in a few hours of practice before dark. Her short game might get work on the weekends, when she could make the lengthy trip outside the city to play on a course. By the time she was 17, she had been on the national team for three years and had reached a bottleneck.
Her coach, Gary Gilchrist, offered Feng a full scholarship to attend his golf academy in Florida, and a year later she made it through Q school on her first try.
"If I still stayed in China, I wouldn't be better, but I had the potential to be better," Feng says.
Her first six years on tour were lonely, as she was the only Chinese player. With her quick wit and spot-on comedic timing, Feng — who goes by the nickname Jenny — made friends on tour, but it wasn't until last year that she had another player from her country there.
Now there are four others, with Feng expecting more to follow. While no Chinese man is currently competing on the PGA Tour, some young golfers present the country's chance to break through there.
"Compared to where I was when I was 19 or 20, I think they're better," Feng says. "So I'm assuming in the future they will be better than where I am now. I believe after maybe five to 10 years, there will be so many Chinese on the tour."
'DON'T CALL IT A GOLF COURSE'
Banned by Mao Zedong in 1949 as a "sport for millionaires," golf did not make its return to China until the first course was built in Guangdong Province in 1984. With the growth of the middle class and increased wealth, construction of golf courses flourished.
Often, Washburn says, that had more to do with selling the houses lining the fairways in the development than an increased demand for the sport.
"The golf course was just another amenity, a way to sell a home and sell a lifestyle," he says. "You have a lot of these newly rich in China who wanted to flaunt their new station in life."
The sport's reputation as an elitist pursuit persists today as it remains prohibitively expensive to play for a majority of Chinese, with a round costing about $150 and membership to private clubs running more than $100,000 a year. It remains taboo, with government officials avoiding being seen playing, so as to avert a scandal.
"It does have these image problems in China," Washburn says.
The moratorium on course construction imposed in 2004 was aimed at protecting arable land, saving water and reducing pollution from fertilizer and pesticides. But new courses continued to open. Although pinning down the number of courses in China is difficult, Washburn says state media estimated there were 178 there a decade ago, and there are now up to 600, mostly in eastern China, according to various experts.
A course design can be redone dozens of times to meet standards, and developers are known to get creative in naming their projects to get around the government's rules.
"Rule No. 1 when building a golf course in China was, 'Don't call it a golf course,'" Washburn says. "You may call it a green space. You may call it a sports field. You may call it a park. One of my favorites was a huge development defined itself as ecological restoration, so there are all these loopholes, and that's how these courses got built."
Despite the closures and other challenges, China maintains some of the best and biggest courses in the world. In Shenzhen, less than two hours northwest of Hong Kong, Mission Hills holds the Guinness Book of World Records title as the largest golf club in the world. It has a dozen 18-hole courses, including ones designed by Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els and Pete Dye.
In fact, Jack Nicklaus Design has 25 courses in the country with more on the way, says Paul Stringer, president of Asia Pacific for Nicklaus Companies. Stringer says plans for some current courses are on hold while developers wait for more information from the government on how to proceed.
"That's what you hear about when you hear about golf courses being plowed up or shut down," Stringer says. "Sometimes it's a really gray area, where you really don't know if the developer has gone through the process."
FENG'S LUCKY BOUNCE
A year after Feng won the LPGA Championship (since rebranded as the Women's PGA Championship), she remained a relative unknown in China. But in 2013, the LPGA held its first event in mainland China — the Reignwood LPGA Classic in suburban Beijing — and Feng's dramatic victory not only helped to grow her profile back home but also attract more interest in golf.
Down one stroke on the final hole, Feng hit an approach shot that seemed destined for the water hazard but bounced off a rock, onto the green and hit the pin before setting up a short eagle putt.
The tournament was held during Golden Week, a national week-long holiday, and more than 10,000 fans attended. Feng estimated about 8,000 saw her make that lucky shot.
"I don't know if I can do that again in my life," she says.
Heading into this week's Women's PGA Championship, Feng has four wins on tour, 50 top-10 finishes and nearly $6 million in career earnings. But she has not drawn prominence in a way many think a male golfer might.
The European Tour started playing in China in 1992, and Americans first began making regular appearances there in 2005 when David Howell beat Tiger Woods to win the HSBC Champions in Shenzhen. The PGA Tour partners with the China Golf Association on PGA Tour China, a low-level tour that launched in 2014.
Success on the PGA Tour China allowed Li Hao Tong to play on the Web.com Tour this year. At 19, he's the highest-ranked Chinese man in the world at No. 128.
"You think in the years to come, he's definitely got the potential to win tournaments on the PGA Tour around the world," says Michael Dickie, a Scottish PGA professional who coached Li and has lived and worked in China since 2004.
Wu Ashun became the first Chinese player to win a European Tour event on his home soil in April when he finished first at the Volvo China Open. And Guan Tianlang was the youngest player to ever make the cut at a major when, in 2013 at 14 years old, he finished in 58th place at the Masters.
"I think having Guan winning the Asian amateur and then getting into the Masters was a huge lift for China," says Woods, who made a visit to China with Nike in April.
"On top of that, he was 14 years old and playing in the Masters. That's just ridiculous. But that's the kind of talent that is coming. They need places to play and encouragement and facilities and teachers necessary to help them develop their skills."
GROWING GOLF IN CHINA
Trying to handicap the potential for growth for China, both in the pro ranks and for the golf industry at large, can be a fool's errand.
Even a few million new golfers, a negligible amount of the population, could mean a big increase for the global golf economy. Given the decline in the USA — a report from the National Golf Foundation this year found the USA is down nearly 700 courses from its peak and opening new ones at an all-time low — some look to China as a way to make up the market share.
"We're not relying on it, but certainly we see the potential for it," says Ty Votaw, chief marketing officer for the PGA Tour.
Others are less convinced. Cultural barriers still present a problem, says Washburn. Closing courses will likely slow the growth, and he says it's important to watch what further guidance the government gives.
"China today is perhaps one of the only countries in the world where golf participation is on the rise," Washburn says. "You will find people in the golf industry who in one way or another are counting on China for the future of the sport. I think that says a lot about the global state of golf if a country that has so many obstacles to the growth of the game is labeled as the next great hope for the game, too."
The development of junior players in the country is where many see China's greatest potential for growth. Grass-roots efforts are rare, though Feng is starting a junior program with her former teammates to introduce the game to public school students.
"The fact that they don't have any problem working hard, that's one of the reasons you're starting to see some really good young players, really good," says David Leadbetter, who is one of the world's most renowned instructors and has an academy at Mission Hills. "One thing for sure with these young players: You tell them to do something — whether it be working out or practicing, whatever it may be — they'll do it. There's no arguments about it. It's a cultural thing. You have to think in the not-too-distant future, there's going to be a real star come out of China."
If that happens, the most likely avenue is through the Olympics. While the government closes courses, it is also providing unprecedented support to its Olympics program. Although many of the players on the national team are professionals, the government brings in coaches, provides money to cover expenses and play in tournaments, Dickie says.
"It's a very impressive system and very heavily backed by the state for those players," Dickie says.
For Feng, that can mean success in the future. She'll likely represent China, since qualification is based on official world golf rankings. But she expects more success for China, even if it doesn't come until 2020 or 2024.
"If a golfer, a Chinese golfer, can win the gold medal, whatever, just a medal, that would show the people it's the same as other sports," Feng says. "It can bring China honor and make us proud, so maybe that can change everybody's attitude."
Axon reported from Cambridge, Ontario
Contributing: Peter Barzilai