SARS... a catalyst for Golf

If you can remember back to 2003 the SARS epidemic started to spread from Hong Kong. For me, this was my first chance to come to Asia. I took advantage of the cheap airfares, knowing they would have it under control. And, now, here I am in Asia living and working.

SARS was a airborne epidemic that spread throughout many large cities in Asia. One of the cities affected was Beijing. Over the past two years living in Beijing, I have heard on numerous occasions that people starting playing golf when SARS hit. It is a really interesting phenomenon. The reason many people started playing golf is because people wanted to be outdoors. During that time, if you were indoors, you may catch the virus if someone sneezed or coughed. So, many people wanted to get outside and away from others. There you have it, a pretty large group of the Beijing golfers started playing when SARS hit.

Now, Beijing has around fifty golf clubs and over one-hundred driving ranges. The golf industry is hot here and is the second best market behind Guangdong Province in the South.

China Tour Stories

This year my parter and I have been traveling with the Omega China Tour. It is an interesting tour that is three years old. The tour is professionally run and has a look and feel like any other major tour you would visit in the world.

We have traveled to each stop coaching and helping many of the tour professionals. It has been fun building relationships with the touring professionals in China. They all have different stories of how they decided on playing golf. What you have to realize is that most of the touring professionals are the best coaches in their hometowns. Therefore, there aren't many professional coachs to help them out. With this situation, we have seen many homegrown swings.

There are also a lot of homegrown stories of how they became interested in golf. There is an American following the tour especially one player this year. He is compiling information for a book he is writing: ParForChina. The American writer is writing about golf in China and the stories of the players on the China Tour. I look forward to seeing the finished product. One of the players he is following started working as a security guard at a golf course. Later, he started practicing at night and now he is a China Tour player ranked in the top 15. I am always intrigued to find out more about each of the players stories. There are players that were ex-baseball players, weigh-lifters, kungfu artists, motorcross racers, the list goes on... It is an interesting time to work in the golf business in China.