Spring City Lake Course

I wasn't planning on playing Spring City's other course, the Lake Course,
designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. I was instead going to play a course closer to Kunming, but Spring City gave me a voucher for 400 yuan off my next round, so I decided to head down for another round. The course was pretty different from the Mountain Course. This course is set right next to the lake and incorporates the cliffs and natural marsh/bushes. There are more opportunities on this course to put up a big number, especially with all of the elevation changes, which makes club selection pretty difficult. On one short par-3, the elevation changes 30 meters from the tee to the green, and on another par-3, no part of the green can be seen from the tee because it is so far uphill.

I didn't play too well today, so I headed to the driving range after my round and hit two buckets of balls, all with my driver, to try to work some things out. Within about ten shots everyone who was working on the driving range was standing behind my stall watching me hit balls, which was a pretty funny sight.

I then walked around the clubhouse for a bit, and I noticed that almost every
golfer at this course has a tour bag, which if you don't know is a huge bag that weighs twice as much as a stand bag and doesn't have a kick stand. The only people I've ever seen use these types of bags in America are tour pros, because they never have to carry their bags, so the extra weight doesn't matter. Anyway, seeing this made me realize that throughout China almost every bag I have seen is a tour bag, and that this means most people never carry their own bags during their rounds. This makes sense because caddies are so prevalent and cheap here, but it's definitely a change from America.

The tee shot on number one, a 557-yard par 5

Tee shot on number two, a 448-yard par 4

Number five, a 379-yard par 4 with a split fairway.

The approach to number 7, a 388-yard par 4

Number eight, a 172-yard par 3 with a 30 meter drop from the tee to green. I hit a pitching wedge here to the green.

The approach to number nine, a 486-yard par 5

Looking back at number nine

View from the tee at number ten, a 170-yard par three

The fourteenth green

Number 15, a 386-yard par 4 with two fairways

Number 18, a 449-yard par 4

The eighteenth green


The caddy standings

I was watching TV two nights ago and CNN was running a show, "Talk Asia", which takes one topic in Asia and does an in-depth discussion. This episode was a conversation with Jack Nicklaus in Beijing, and the topic was golf in China. Nicklaus said he is currently working on over a dozen courses in China, and said that China's golf is growing faster than any other country right now, but that he expects India and Brazil to follow. He emphasized the role that he thinks the Olympics will have on golf (he was one of the main voices rallying for golf to be included as an Olympic sport. Nicklaus said that in places like China, major championships are not as well known as they are in the U.S. and Europe, but a gold medal is coveted so much. Therefore, he thinks that golf's inclusion as an Olympic sport will make more Chinese people want to play the game. The show interviewed a man who works at a golf course in Beijing, and he said that Chinese people are so disappointed that their soccer team did not make the World Cup, but that he hopes Chinese golfers can bring the country pride in the upcoming Olympics. Nicklaus repeatedly stressed the need for facilities in order to get people interested in golf, and actually said that there are no public facilities in Brazil now, and that China needs more facilities open to the public. Jack also made the point that growth, while occurring in China, is slower than it would otherwise be with the same demand because it takes twice or three times as long to build a course here as compared to in America. Nicklaus says this is because contractors are all learning as they go how to build a course, and people don't have the knowledge of how to grow and cut the grass. Lastly, Jack says he was in Kunming just last week checking in on a course he's currently building.

The interviewer was trying to prod Jack and see if he would say anything about golf being exclusionary in China. First he asked Jack why his courses were so expensive, and Nicklaus said his team works within a budget, and if they're given limited resources they will still make a course in that budget. So far, I haven't seen anything to support this assertion, since Nicklaus's courses are all pretty expensive and only the richest Chinese people and tourists can play them. The interviewer also asked Jack what he thought of the initiation at his most exclusive course, Pine Valley, in Beijing, which is rumored to be 400,000-500,000. Jack tried to ignore the question and plead ignorance, but when he was pressed he said something to the effect of, "well, then, business is good." So I don't think Jack wanted to acknowledge some of the negative aspects of golf as it is growing in China.