My dad, brother and I were invited to play Bayhood No. 9, an exlusive, members-only club in Beijing, between the fourth and fifth ring roads. We were invited by Zhao Qian, a member who my dad met on a business trip to China earlier this year. He attended UIBE in Beijing, which is the university Carleton uses for the Beijing political economy seminar. In fact, Zhao was a student at UIBE in 1989, when Carleton ran its first program out of Beijing, and he was one of the student guides who spent time with the Carleton group.
Everything at Bayhood is over-the-top. I got a sense of this when we pulled up in a taxi to the gates and the security guard explained to me that taxis weren't allowed inside the club, so we took our clubs out of the trunk on the street and some golf carts came to pick us up. Each golfer is given his own cart with two caddies, one to drive the cart and one to handle club selection and explain the holes to the golfers. One thing that I have never seen before is that Bayhood has two small leather golf bags, and the caddies divide your clibs up between them, leaving the woods in your bag, then putting long irons in an additional bag and wedges in a third bag. Then, the caddy carries the small bag to your ball and you can switch clubs really easy.
Zhao, when he heard I had a blog, said, "make sure you metion that this is the course where people take all of the corrupt officials." He also said that this was a good example of top-notch service in China, which is definitely accurate. After our round, when we walked into the clubhouse, a staff member walked beside us and asked, "how did you play? How was the course? Are there any suggestions you could give us about our service?" I was then given a packet that they give to potential members, which describes in detail some of the other services they provide and features of the course. Over 3,000 pine trees were uprooted and replanted along the course, the driving range has VIP rooms, and the club has the first PGA golf academy in Asia.
Membership? 1,080,000 RMB for one person, which is around $160,000.
Overall, the course was very challenging and in peak condition. The greens were rolling fast and true, the fairways were excellent and the bunkers were fairly deep, which is rare for courses in Asia. I liked the layout, the only critiques I have are that there are a few eyesores (watertowers, powerlines, etc.) because the course is actually in the city, one hole has a bunker in the middle of the green which is pretty gimicky and makes for an automatic three-putt even if you are on the green because you have to putt around it and then go at the hole, and parts felt a little too hilly (they had pretty flat land, so I think they went a little overboard in trying to make it look natural and rolling).
I played pretty poorly, but I expected that considering I woke up at 5:30 AM to make our 7:30 AM tee time.
The first hole, a 422 yard par-4
The approach to number two, a 541 yard par-5 (note the bunker in the middle of the green)
Number four, a 178 yard par-3
Number six, a 408 yard par-4
Number seven, a 473 yard par-4
The approach to number nine, a 550 yard par-4
Number eleven, a 423 yard par-4
Number twelve, a 587 yard par-5
Number 14, a 382 yard par-4
Number 16, a 420 yard par-4
Our convoy of golf carts, some of our caddies (we had 8 for our foursome) and the three golf bags we each had
The approach to number 17, a 535 yard par-5
Number 18, a 130 yard island green par-3 with the clubhouse overlooking the hole
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