FORE!

China’s communists ban gluttony, adultery — and golf.

BEIJING• Chinese President Xi Jinping is well known to be a keen soccer fan. It appears he does not feel the same about golf.

On Thursday, China announced hitting the links was officially banned for all 88 million members of the Communist Party.

It was joined by excessive eating and drinking and having “improper sexual relations with others” in an eight-article moral and ethical code issued by the Politburo of China’s Communist Party Central Committee, the nation’s 25 top leaders, meant to promote clean governance.

The code forms part of Xi’s efforts to rebuild the party’s public image by eliminating corruption and extravagance. Golf falls short on several counts.

It’s a symbol of Western extravagance in a country where Xi is determined to eliminate Western values. Golf courses are also seen as venues for officials to strike corrupt deals with rich business people.

The Communist Party has long had a difficult relationship with the sport. Mao Zedong banned it, believing it to be frivolous and bourgeois.

The first course was opened in 1984, designed by Arnold Palmer, and the sport took off. But 20 years later, the government banned construction of new courses.

Nevertheless, the number of courses is said to have tripled in the five years after the ban, and now there may be anywhere between 600 and 1,000. Many hide under misleading names, like the massive 22-course complex in Hainan officially known as the “Yangshan District Land Consolidation and Ecological Project.”

In 2009, the Guang Ming Daily, a state-run newspaper, called the game “green opium” and warned officials were too addicted to playing golf to fulfil their duties. But it is only since Xi came to power that the wind has changed more definitively.

In March, the government announced it had closed 66 illegally built courses. Around the same time, the anti-corruption agency in Guangzhou said it was targeting officials who played the game.

In September, Wang Shenyang, the director of Department of Outward Investment & Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, was removed from office for using public money to play golf.

As part of the anti-corruption drive, the Communist Party has also sought to curb official banquets.