Tomson Shanghai Pudong Golf Club

I got a tee time at Tomson Shanghai Pudong Golf Club, a private club in the heart of Pudong. The club is part of a huge residential complex with European-style mansions lining the course. The course hosted the BMW Asian Open from 2004-2008, and winners of the event while it was held on this course include Miguel Angel Jimenez, Ernie Els and Darren Clarke, so a pretty nice list of winners. While it wasn't raining, it was 95 degrees outside with a heat index of 107, so it was pretty brutal. The course plays 6810 yards from the tips and when the tournament is held here the pros play it at 7343 yards.

The first hole is a short par-4, 380 yards, with a slight dogleg right. I hit a pretty terrible drive to start my round, but hit a good recovery shot at of the rough, and heard the first "hao qiu" of the day from the caddy.

Hole 1

Hole 3, a 192-yard par 3

Hole 4, a 413-yard par 4 with a stone wall guarding approaches to the green

Hole 6, a 416-yard par 4, the toughest hole on the course. Trees on the left guard the green against misplaced drives. To have a shot at the green, drives need to be put out to the right side of the fairway.

Hole 8, a 155-yard par 3 with a waste bunker running up the right-hand side and a severely sloping green. The postage stamp hole for this course.

The approach to the ninth hole, with the clubhouse behind the hole.

The tenth hole, a 376-yard par four with a creek running up the left-hand side, which opens up in front of the green, guarding it against poor approach shots.

The 11th hole, another short par 4, 358-yards. A nice risk-reward hole, where one can take driver up the left hand side and have a wedge into the green, or can take a hybrid or iron and have a mid-iron into the green. Any tee shot left out to the right side is in the water. I took driver here and hit my best drive of the day, leaving less than a full wedge into the green.

The par-3 12th, 184-yards

The approach shot on the par-4 14th, another short par-4. A drive hit too far is into the waste area, and if the wrong angle is taken off the tee the trees in the fairway can completely obstruct the approach shot.

The well-bunkered, 427-yard 15th.

The 197-yard par 3 17th.

The tee shot on 18, a 533-yard par 5.

Overall, this was a really nice, strategic golf course. The rough wasn't very thick or tall but the way the course is routed around the trees (or how they planted the trees around the course) can completely obstruct shots. Also, almost all of the trees are not very tall and the branches start at a very low point, so it was tough to keep shots underneath the trees. I thought the par threes and short par fours were the best part of the course. The landing areas required a good shot and they rewarded good shots while punishing misses. My favorite stretch of holes was 10 through 12, and overall the back nine has very few weak holes. The most penal part of the course today, however, was the weather. With over 60% humidity and a heat index of 107, on hole 17 I could barely swing a club and was just thinking about the air conditioned clubhouse.

The caddies at the courses in China are surprisingly helpful given how recent golf is in China and the fact that none of the caddies play golf. My caddy knew the yardage from all of my shots to the green without looking at sprinkler heads or a yardage guide, and I checked her yardage against my laser-finder and she was right on the money almost every time.

A few differences between caddies in China and those in America: Caddies in China are almost all female (I've seen one male caddy during my time in China and it was last year in Dali). Some Chinese caddies bow to you after the round is finished. None of the caddies here play golf, they all live in dorms on the property, and are more involved in some aspects of the game. For example, once I hit my approach shot onto a green, the caddy would mark my ball for me, line up my ball to the break and point out where in the green I should aim my putt. It takes a bit of the fun out of the game, but I wasn't going to tell her to stop doing it and her lines were pretty accurate, again surprising considering she had never swung a golf club in her life. Finally, and most unfortunately, all of the caddies are forced to wear these ridiculous uniforms: pink pants and a pink turtleneck sweater. I could barely walk in shorts and a polo, and I have no clue how she made it in the clothes she wore.

Days 1 and 2 in China

Day 1:

I woke up early on my first day because of jet lag and headed out to Nanjing road, which is the main commercial road in Shanghai, with the upscale department stores and shops. Just off of Nanjing road is renmin gong yuan (renmin park), which is really nice and has some lily ponds and walkways. Older Chinese people were out early in the morning doing exercises and taichi in groups. In the park is the Shanghai Museum, which is regarded as the best museum in China. It's four stories and has exhibits on Chinese currency, calligraphy, ceramics and jade carving. After the museum I walked to this area in the French Concession called Xin Tian Di, which is a newly built complex of shops, cafes, restaurants, bars and businesses. In the middle of this area is the site of the 1st National Congress of the CCP. In 1921 at this building, which is now a museum but still has the room intact where the leaders met, the communist party was formed in China and their charter was written. Upstairs there are old copies of Chinese translations of Marx and artifacts having to do with the Chinese communist party. I then went to the Ohel Moishe Synagogue, which was built in 1927 by the Russian Ashkenazi Jewish community. The Synagogue was recently restored and has exhibits behind it that detail how Shanghai took in Jews during WWII and helped them escape persecution. In the 1940s the area surrounding the synagogue became a Jewish ghetto as the Japanese forced most of Shanghai's 30,000 Jews into this area. Among those who escaped to Shanghai during WWII was Michael Blumenthal, who came from Berlin, and emigrated to the U.S. after the War. Blumenthal later became the Secretary of the Treasury under Jimmy Carter.

The Shanghai Museum, modeled after a ding vessel

Some of the oldest Chinese paper currency

What Chinese currency looked like before coins or paper

currency (pretty bulky)

Chinese calligraphy in a script style

One of the first copies of a Chinese translation of Marx

The site of the 1st National Congress of the CCP

My first sighting of golf in China - I don't know how these

figurines fit in with this vendor's other items

The exterior of the Ohel Moishe Synagogue

Day 2:

I started my second day by going back to Xin Tian Di for dim sum at Crystal Jade, a famous Shanghainese dim sum restaurant. After that I walked to the Bund, probably Shanghai's most famous site. The Bund is where all of the old commerce and hotels were, and it faces Pudong, the area where all of the commerce takes place now, and housing some of the tallest buildings in t he world. I started at the south end of the Bund, at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, probably the most fmaous building on the bund. It was opened in 1923 and is pretty extravagant. From there is the Customs House, which was built in 1927 and has famous clock tower on top of it, which chimed until it was stopped during the Cultural Revolution and replaced with propaganda broadasts (it chimes now though). I ended at the Pujiang Hotel, now the Astor House Hotel, which is Shanghai's first hotel. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard and the sky was completely overcast so none of the tops of buildings on the Pudong side were visible. I had some time to kill until dinner time, so I went back to Xin Tian Di and visited the Shikumen Open House, which is a restored old Shikumen house, the type of house that people in Shanghai lived in before all of this development. The homes have a huge stone entryway framing black doors (which is how it gets its Chinese name). The homes are linked by a courtyard and a shop that sold basic items, which is where the families interacted.

Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank

Customs House

Pujiang Hotel

I then went to dinner at a place called Tenya. I e-mailed Greg asking for suggestions of places to eat in Shanghai and he said, in all caps, that I had to go to Tenya. I showed the address to the cab driver, he dropped me off on a street and I couldn't see any restaurants. I walked into an alleyway and the restaurant was there. It was definitely a place you had to be looking for to actually find. This place only serves toro tuna, the fattiest part of the tuna. As the Tenya website says, "only 3% of the tuna caught in the world can make the best toro. Only 2 species of tuna, Bluefin and Southern Bluefin, are able to make good toro. Only 20% part of this special tuna can be called toro." I love tuna and this place was amazing. I ordered the toro sushi five ways - fatty toro, medium fat toro, marinated toro, grilled toro and toro handroll. Greg said it was the best sushi he's ever had and I'd agree. Tenya now has 5 locations and one is opening up in Beijing, but this location was the original, with only 34 seats.

The five types of sushi at Tenya

The sky cleared up at around 5:00PM today and it was finally nice outside. Hopefully this carries over to tomorrow, when I play my first round of golf.

Introduction

I will be spending the next six weeks traveling through China, visiting Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Kunming, Lijiang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an and Beijing. In each of these cities I will be exploring some of the most famous historical sites in China, and will also be playing some of the best golf courses China has to offer. My trip is the result of a fellowship and prize that I was awarded from my college, Carleton, and my goal is to use golf as a tool to explore cross-cultural differences between Chinese and Americans and see what golf can reveal about Chinese culture.