The Forbidden Game
Page 34
Over the course of 2013, rarely a week went by without mention of some teenage Chinese golf sensation making history somewhere in the world. Most notable among these phenoms was Guan Tianlang, who, aged fourteen years and five months, became the youngest golfer to make the cut at a major championship – the US Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. That summer the New York Times Magazine ran a cover story positioning China as an “unlikely incubator for golf prodigies.”
With China coming to the fore in professional golf, in 2014 the China Golf Association and the US-based PGA Tour launched the PGA Tour China, the latest attempt at a domestic professional golf series in the country. The tour was expected to feature twelve tournaments, each with at least 1.2 million yuan ($200,000) in prize money. Organizers said this iteration of a “China Tour” would provide “open competition and a quality tour for elite players from China and other countries and the opportunity to advance to the world stage.” The debut event took place at Mission Hills Haikou in April.
If any of the participants or spectators decided to leave the Sandbelt Trails Course and walk southwest, to just beyond the complex’s massive employee dormitories, they’d find Wang Libo doing steady business. He said things were “very good.” So good, in fact, that he’s added another level to his restaurant and shop, and hired four new employees – none of them family members.
Business wasn’t as robust for Martin Moore. He was “pretty lucky” to still have a handful of projects going on in China these days. “It’s a shaky market. I believe the government is being more aggressive now than I’ve ever seen them,” he said. Every year Martin hears whispers that things are going to change, that the crackdowns are coming to an end, that the golf course moratorium will finally be lifted. But each year, Chinese New Year comes and goes, and very little changes. Initially, there were rumblings that the Xi Jinping government would be “pro golf” – Xi is rumored to be a golfer himself – and that soon there’d be a pathway to legitimacy for golf courses in China. “He’s totally anti-corruption,” Martin said of Xi. And, to most in the industry, it didn’t seem likely he’d give golf the official green light any time soon.
The only place in China, Martin said, where golf courses seemed to have some sort of green light, was in Hainan. Martin knew all too well that nothing was guaranteed, so he was regularly chasing other leads, in Thailand and Vietnam – but not in the United States. There wasn’t much new being built there.
Zhou Xunshu didn’t compete much after the 2010 season. He participated in six tournaments in 2011, finishing fourth in the event held at Sun Kingdom, his home course in Chongqing. He had expected to win. In 2012, he played in four of eight domestic tournaments, and in 2013 entered just one. Zhou said his reasons were purely financial. It was becoming harder for players of his generation to do well in tournaments, because more and more of the younger, well-off players, with coaches and nothing but time to train, were coming onto the scene. He couldn’t support his family from tournament winnings alone, and thus he couldn’t justify the time for practice – time he could and should spend earning money. Zhou knew stepping back was the right decision for Liu Yan and Hanhan, and even for his elderly parents, who now lived in Bijie with Zhou’s brothers, but it still ate him up inside. “I miss competing. I just enjoy the whole experience, the process of playing the game,” he said, and added he might try to play in a couple of the stops on the new PGA Tour China, which he thought would be a “great help for Chinese golf.”
Zhou didn’t have much time to stew, however, because he’d been working long hours as head pro at a local driving range. Still known as the best golfer in Chongqing, he was having more and more wealthy parents bring him their young sons and daughters, in the hope he might help them realize their dreams of becoming the next Guan Tianlang or Feng Shanshan. And these parents paid well. Enough so, that in 2012 Zhou could at last buy his dream car, a Volkswagen Sagitar (the Chinese version of the Jetta). The following year he bought two more apartments, banking on the hunch that Chongqing’s real estate market would continue to grow.
There was one young student Zhou was especially excited about. He was quite young – just six years old in 2014. He’s called Hanhan, and he’s coached for free.
“I’m happy, but I have bigger goals,” Zhou said. “I want to earn one million yuan a year, so my son can have a better starting point. I am getting there.”
Was he living the Chinese Dream?
“I’ve heard of this, but I am not sure exactly what it is,” Zhou said. “Something about China achieving this or that. I am not sure how it relates to me, but if the Chinese Dream is successful, then I guess we’ll all be successful.”
He thought for a bit, then added, “I think I might be living the American Dream. It’s the same in China. It doesn’t matter where you come from, as long as you work hard and put your heart into your work, you will get rewarded.”
Acknowledgments
I first interviewed Zhou Xunshu at an Omega China Tour stop near Shanghai in late August 2006. I got married a little more than a month later. I bring this up now – I am writing this in late March 2014 – to point out that my dear, dear wife has lived with this project for a long, long time. And she never wavered in her support: even when it was unclear what all this research would amount to; even as I paid for flight after flight to all corners of China out of our own bank account; even after the first attempt to sell the book failed; even after, once the book finally did sell, I missed one deadline, then another, and if we’re being honest, probably another after that. Bliss Khaw, thank you for your love and encouragement, your generosity and patience. I love you, and I owe you several years’ worth of distractionless vacations.
I will be forever indebted to Zhou Xunshu, Wang Libo and Martin Moore for giving me intimate access to their fascinating lives – in some cases, for several years. This book is as much theirs as it is mine.
The Forbidden Game would not have been possible without the help of the following people, who served as travel companions, translators, transcribers, researchers, advocates, videographers, tech specialists, website caretakers, carpenters and suppliers of writing cabins in the Poconos: Neil Brown, Boruo Chen, Peijin Chen, Elaine Chow, Paul Chung, Bo Feng, Aaron Fleming, Liz Flora, Paul French, Frank Harris, Chris Horton, Shawn Lei, Alice Liu, Kristin Shen, Jay Sheng, Kenneth Tan, Luis Tapia, Sherley Wetherhold and Johnson Zhang.
Many who work in the golf industry in China helped me considerably at various points along the way. I especially want to thank Stewart Beck, Sally Chang, Brian Curley, Michael Dickie, John Higginson, Jim Johnson, Frank Lin, Lu Zhan, Tim Maitland, Richard Mon, David Paul Morris, Patrick Quernemoen, Ray Roessel, Aylwin Tai, Wang Shiwen, Simon Wilson, Xiao Zhijin, Arthur Yeo and Yuan Tian. Due to the off-the-record nature of many of my conversations for this book, the above list is woefully incomplete. Thank you to everyone who helped me try to make sense of things – you know who you are.
For their hospitality and openness, I’d like to thank the good people of Meiqiu, Qixin and Flagstick Golf Course Construction Management; the blue-collar golfers on the Omega China Tour; and the extended families of Zhou Xunshu, Liu Yan and Wang Libo.
Several publications helped me keep my research going as I tried to find a home for the book. For taking an interest in my stories over the years I’d like to express sincere gratitude to Jason Sobel and Kevin Maguire at ESPN.com; Bill Fields and Geoff Russell at Golf World; Josh Levin at Slate; Andy Davis at FT Weekend Magazine; Blake Hounshell and Britt Peterson at Foreign Policy; Anders Peter Mejer at Omega Lifetime; and Noel Prentice at the South China Morning Post.
I’d like to thank Steven Jiang at CNN and Adrienne Mong at NBC for bringing Zhou Xunshu’s story to a global audience, and photographer Ryan Pyle for bringing so many of my stories to life.
I owe many a beer to my colleagues at the Asia Society – notably the online team of Megan MacMurray, Tahiat Mahboob, Shreeya Sinha, Geoff Spencer, Bill S
wersey and Jeff Tompkins – for being so understanding of my occasional irregular hours and frequent “writing vacations.”
Thank you to Oneworld Publications for believing in, and waiting patiently for, this project. Robin Dennis, my wonderful editor at Oneworld, helped turn what was merely a good story into a good book, and meticulously weaved three disparate storylines into one cohesive narrative. You are likely reading this page thanks to the labor of Oneworld’s publicity team – Jennifer Abel Kovitz in North America and Henry Jeffreys and Lamorna Elmer in the UK – as well as the hard work of Alex Billington, Alan Bridger, Ruth Deary, Gail Lynch, and Paul Nash.
None of this would have been possible were it not for the tireless efforts of Zoë Pagnamenta, my indefatigable agent, who stuck with me through thick and thin (mostly thin). For my first foray into the mystifying world of book publishing, I couldn’t have asked for a better guide.
Finally, to my mother, Sandy Washburn, my father, David Washburn, and my brother, Dave Washburn, thank you for four decades of love, inspiration, and support – and for learning, eventually, to stop asking, “So, how is the book coming along?” It’s finished, and it is for you.
About the Author
Dan Washburn is an award-winning reporter and managing editor at the Asia Society. His writing has appeared in the FT Weekend Magazine, The Atlantic, The Economist, ESPN.com, Foreign Policy, Golf Digest, Golf World, Slate, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. Washburn’s work has been featured in the anthologies Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China and Inside the Ropes: Sportswriters Get Their Game On. He is also the founding editor of Shanghaiist.com, one of the most widely read English-language websites about China. After almost a decade living in China, he now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Bliss and their dogs Ozzie and Tux. Visit Dan online at danwashburn.com.