Augusta takes on the China syndrome
COMMENT
One day the town of Augusta in Georgia, home of the Masters, may be renamed Chinatown. Grass grows on the railway track that runs through Augusta and the goods train that seems to stretch for miles no longer rattles through as regularly as it once did in the days of Bobby Jones. Some of the inner suburbs are boarded up. The old centre is peeling in the sun and the well-to-do families have built their walk-in-wardrobe houses on the edge of town.
Augusta must adapt to survive. And so the famous old golf course has turned its face to Asia. It seems extraordinary that this notoriously racist organisation would be kowtowing to men who once built its railway line, but they can see the future. Golf needs Asia if it is to keep on living in the comfortable style to which it has grown accustomed. It needs the Chinese yuan and the vast Asian television market.
And so when Yuxin Lin and Andy Zhang duelled down the stretch at Royal Wellington early on Sunday afternoon, men in green jackets would have been raising mint juleps to each other late into the Georgia night. Don’t forget, a few years ago Augusta kept handing out invitations to Ryo Ishikawa, the ‘bashful Prince of Japan’, as if he were King George VII.
That is what the Asia Pacific Golf Championship is all about. The prize is a trip to the Masters and the Open because the R&A and the Masters want the Asian TV dollar. Whisper it quietly, but it would have been an absolute disaster if a Kiwi or an Ocker had won. The officials were almost hugging themselves when Lin and Zhang emerged as the two principals.
What a contest we were privileged to see. The 19-year-old Zhang would have been a worthy winner. This is the kid who became the youngest to play the US Open as a 14-year-old with braces. He was so wet behind the ears that when Zhang hit a drive into the trees during a practice round, he turned to Bubba Watson and asked if he could hit another.
Zhang is a little dryer behind the ears now. He played the final round of the Asian Pacific like a salty veteran. And on any other day he would have won. But this wasn’t any other day. Lin played a final five holes of golf that would have been remarkable at any level of the game.
The 17-year-old drove pin-high on the par-four 14th and got it up and down from the bunker for birdie. He gave himself chances on 15 and 16 and then drove it onto the fringe of the par-four 17th to set up another birdie. His drive down the par-five 18th travelled 340 yards. Lin then took out his 5-iron, the club with which he had holed for albatross the previous week, and stuffed his ball to a couple of metres for an eagle.
The soul of Fred Ridley, the chairman of Augusta, soared through his coiffeured hair. This was a golden moment for everybody. The third Chinese winner of the event in six years. Four Chinese players in the top five. Golf is changing. Call it the China syndrome.
Li Haotong had eight birdies over Birkdale’s closing 11 holes to shoot a final round 63 at this year’s Open Championship. He finished third and will also play in the 2018 Masters. Shanshan Feng won a bronze medal at the Olympics two years earlier, a hugely significant moment in the sport.
She said: ’’People back in China are watching so i need to make sure that I look nicely. It’s going to really change everything about golf in China.’’
That is some prospect, because golf in that country is the most bizarre of all Chinese puzzles. Guangzhou, the city where Shanshan was born, has an antigraft agency and a public hotline to watch out for officials who play golf.
Some play under false names and always wear long sleeves for fear of getting a golfer’s tan. If they get caught on the course they are brought in for questioning.
I amnot joking. In America presidents go out of their way to be photographed playing golf. Chinese officials hide fearfully in the bushes. Ever since chairman Mao called golf ‘‘a sport for millionaires’’ 50 years ago, the Chinese government has regarded the game as a Western corruption.
A few years ago Beijing banned the building of new courses.And yet no country has built more since the ban (over 400). Developers got round the regulations by calling their projects resorts or sports parks. Dan Washburn has written a fine book about all of this called The Forbidden Game.
Washburn recalls, ‘‘One developer I spoke to likened golf in China to prostitution. That’s illegal, too. But there are still prostitutes everywhere in this country.’’
And so China does this strange dance between the modern rap of capitalism and the old brutal steps of Maoism. On the one hand new golf courses are banned, on the other hand they are springing up everywhere. On the one hand golf is a decadent sport frowned upon by the party, on the other hand Shanghai has just hosted a World Golf Championship event and young Chinese golfers are joining American colleges to improve their game.
‘‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment seat,
But there is neither East nor West, border nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.’’
Rudyard Kipling didn’t foretell their names, but maybe they arrived on a sunlit day at Royal Wellington when fine coffee was on course and superb bacon and eggs were served in ciabatta and two strong Chinamen changed the game forever.