Golf in China Is Younger Than Tiger Woods, but Growing Up Fast

All in all, the child athlete training regimens here don't sound all that more narrow or rigorous than what other nations have done for their Olympic aspirations in other sports...but the OP is particularly interesting, I guess, because it seems to be fueled by the upper-middle class acting out of their own initiative, rather than just a top-down mandate. It's as if golf is the new race for those who would otherwise want their children to be famous surgeons and engineers.

The abandoning of school just to practice golf is...off-putting...at least there's the consolation that there's huge money in professional golf, unlike all the other niche Olympic sports (weightlifting, field events) that nations invest in just to rack up a raw medal count.

Also: obligatory section that directly relates to HN-type discussions:

> A few years ago, American golf academies seemed poised to flood the China market. But several famous ones that opened branches in China — run by golf luminaries like David Leadbetter and Cindy Reid — have closed, often after disagreements with local partners. It’s a pattern any foreigner doing business in China would recognize: Chinese firms tend to nudge out their foreign partners once the technology has been transferred and the local company has built up its own strength and know-how.

My only observation of golf is how it is neat trick to create apparently more valuable real estate out of otherwise nearly valueless and featureless land by building a golf course. Can't build a beach, can't build a mountain, can't build a real lake without a real river, but a golf course, yes, we can build one of those.

China seems overdue to fall into permanent Japanese-style economic stagnation. Maybe we can flog their economy to death with overpriced golf course housing developments.

Golf in China is crazy expensive. In the US, there are generally places to play for ~$40 a round, in fact there are two courses in NYC accessible by subway for that price. In China, the cheapest I could find was ~$150/round.

I wonder if the Chinese public will be interested in the PGA once this generation is playing on the tour. The sport is just so inaccessible to the public, that it is possible none in China will care about their success.

Growing fast by cutting trees

golf is an arrogant sport to begin with. it will be even more arrogant in a culture where a billion people compete for space.