Best China Golf Courses and Golf Tours in China

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Mission Hills

Shenzhen is home to hundreds of factories, one of China’s two mainland stock exchanges, a theme park called Window on the World that features more than 100 miniature versions of monuments like the Taj Mahal, a Soviet aircraft carrier, and, of course, the world’s largest golf resort: Mission Hills.

But this has not stopped the Mission Hills team from achieving another world record.

Last month, they opened the world’s largest practice putting green, a beautiful 17-acre spread of 18 rolling greens and tiny sand bunkers.

Already, the resort boasts 12 world-class golf courses designed by some of the most famous names in the game – Greg Norman, Vijay Singh, and Nick Faldo – and hosts major world tournaments.

Mission Hills is a curious mix of extreme luxury and developing world. It has three spas, 3,000 caddies (all of them women – to seem less intimidating to novice golfers – and all wearing red jumpsuits and plastic helmets). Some 2,000 rounds of golf are played here each day.

The resort abuts the city’s industrial outskirts, and to drive from one end of the resort to the other requires passing a vacuum sealing plant, an electronics factory, and acre upon acre of actively tilled peasant farmland.

Even the staff works to keep up.

中文

深圳市有着上百家工厂；有中国内地两个股市交易所中的一间；有一个名为“世界之窗”的主题公园，以模型的形式向游客展示世界奇观，包括泰姬陵；有前苏联的一艘航空母舰；当然，这城市还包括世界上最大的高尔夫球场，观澜湖。
然而，观澜湖的世界纪录还在刷新。
上个月，观澜湖开放了世界上最大的高尔夫球轻击区，占地17英亩，有着18个滚动果岭和小型沙坑。
这个高尔夫胜地已经建成的12个世界级高尔夫球场由业界最出名的设计师设计，包括诺曼，维杰辛，和费多。球场已经举办过多个世界级高尔夫球赛。
观澜湖集奢华和发展于一身，有着3个健身休闲中心，3000名球童（全部都是女性——为了少影响新手，她们都穿上红色连衫裤和塑胶头盔）。每天大约有2000场的高尔夫球赛在这里举行。
这个高尔夫胜地毗邻城市的工业郊区。开车穿过它时会经过一个真空包装工厂，一个电厂，和连绵的农田。

Shenzhen golf resort firm opens world’s largest practice putting green.

edited by Fanja.

Mission Hills Norman Course

Allenby and Appleby to play at World Cup.

US-based Golf Digest magazine has released its annual list of what it considers to be the China’s top ten golf courses. According to the magazine’s editors, if you’re looking for China’s best courses, forget Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen – the best golf in China is in Kunming.

Kunming took three of the top six spots on Golf Digest’s list, here are the results:

1. Spring City Golf & Lake Resort (Lake course), Kunming, Yunnan province

2. Spring City Golf & Lake Resort (Mountain course), Kunming, Yunnan province

3. Sheshan Golf Club, Shanghai

4. Shenzhen Golf Club, Shenzhen, Guangdong province

5. Tiger Beach Golf Links, Haiyang, Shandong province

6. Lakeview Golf Club, Kunming, Yunnan province

7. Jian Lake Golf & Country Club, Shaoxing, Zhejiang province

8. Trans Strait Golf Club, Fuzhou, Fujian province

9. Pine Valley Golf Resort & Country Club (Old course), Beijing

10. Mission Hills Golf Club (Norman course), Shenzhen, Guangdong province

Kunming ended up beating out the big coastal cities with the top two courses – both at Spring City Golf and Lake Resort. Designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr, Spring City’s Lake course was named best in China, beating out Spring City’s other championship course, the Jack Nicklaus-designed Mountain course.

Kunming reappears at the number six spot on the list with Lakeview Golf Club, which has been the site of the Yunnan stops of the Omega China Tour as well as the Faldo Series Asia.

Shanghai’s Sheshan Golf course rounded out the top three.

Shenzhen is the only other city with multiple courses in Golf Digest’s top ten – Shenzhen Golf Club was named number four, while Mission Hills Golf Club’s Greg Norman-designed course came in tenth.

Editor’s note: This story was cross-posted on China Sports Today

Image: Spring City Golf & Lake Resort

This article is from http://gokunming.com/en/

May 14, 2009: Yuan Hao believes next month’s RMB1 million Luxehills Golf Championship in Chengdu offers the big-hitter an ideal opportunity to shed his ‘nearly man’ tag on the Omega China Tour.

Yuan’s third-place finish at the inaugural Luxehills event last September was yet another ‘close but no cigar’ campaign for the Guangzhou-based pro, who blasted into the first-round lead with a six-under 66 and on the final day was within one stroke of Tsai Chi-huang with four holes left.

However, three straight bogeys later and another opportunity was gone, with Tsai winning with a Tour-record 18-under total at the Luxehills International Country Club, which hosts this year’s event from June 11-14.

The pattern repeated itself in last month’s Sofitel Golf Championship in Nanjing. Yuan was tied for the lead with Zhang Lianwei during the third round before an error-strewn triple at the par-five 11th and three-putt bogeys on his last two holes saw him drop out of contention, the 29-year-old eventually finishing fifth.

Yuan Hao’s name may be a familiar one on leaderboards, but not on trophies.

“I definitely want to win, but I always make mistakes on the key holes, especially in the third or fourth round, or the last three or four holes. I rush things, I can’t calm down,” says Yuan, the circuit’s birdie leader last year and regarded as the longest hitter among Chinese pros.

“At Luxehills, I was in the final flight with Tsai and Zhang Xinjun in the third round, then came close on the last day. I played in a leading group again and had another chance, but lost again. I felt the pressure.”

Much like Colin Montgomerie’s reputation as the best player not to have won a Major, Yuan is arguably the best active Chinese pro without a win on the Omega China Tour.

No one on the circuit has come so close, so often, without winning. He has finished in the top-five a remarkable nine times, notching up 14 top-10s in 27 appearances. But just as others expect him to crumble when the finishing line comes into sight, so does he.

Outside the circuit, Yuan has experienced victory, having beaten Zhang Lianwei in a play-off for the Royal Orchid China Classic in his native Guangdong in October 2005. So, why has the man who can make the game look so easy, made it so hard for himself over the past four years?

“I’ve led tournaments many times, but I’ve missed becoming a champion time and time again. I don’t have a good mental game. I often choose the wrong clubs and my putting can be bad. I can get lazy when I’m putting,” he says.

“Every time I leave home to play in a tournament, my goal is always the same, but in the four days of the event, I always feel like I defeat myself.”

It has been a rollercoaster ride for Yuan, who has been one of China’s most exciting talents since turning pro in 2004, having represented his country at the Busan Asian Games with Liao Guiming and Wu Kangchun.

He was joint runner-up to Zhang Xinjun, an amateur, in last June’s RMB2.1 million China Pro-Am and revealed his ambition by trying his luck in this year’s Asian Tour Qualifying School.

However, he doesn’t have a coach and instead hopes time will prove his ally as he learns from his many, often agonising, experiences. Arguably his most painful loss was in the final round of the 2006 Shandong Championship, which embodied his frustrated quest to win on his domestic circuit.

Yuan was four ahead of Li Chao after 14 holes but a four-shot swing saw the pair level going to the last. Yuan put his approach eight feet from the flag, but Li landed his inches closer, critically forcing Yuan to putt first and give his rival a perfect read for a dramatic birdie, his third in four holes. Li has gone on to win eight times on Tour and twice topped the Omega Order of Merit.

Yuan has finished eighth, fifth, sixth and seventh on the Omega Order of Merit in the Tour’s first four seasons, but another year featuring several ‘good’ results is unlikely to satisfy the man who turns 30 in September.

“My biggest desire is to become a champion on the Omega China Tour. That’s my goal and my dream now. There are more foreign players this year, but my aim hasn’t changed,” he says.

“Luxehills is a very beautiful course and the wide fairways suit my game. I played well in Nanjing in April and in Chengdu I hope to finally win. It should be my turn. I hope so.”

ENDS

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Visit the Gallery at www.thechinatour.org and click on any image to access the high-resolution option. Credit: World Sport Group.

For further information

Please contact John Higginson, Media Manager, World Sport Group (East Asia). Email: j.higginson@worldsportgroup.com.hk. Tel: +852 2891-2000. Mobile: +852 6626-1443.

About the Luxehills International Country Club

Luxehills International Country Club is Chengdu’s most central golf club and part of the Luxehills International Community, the most prominent real estate project in China’s southwest region. The project was developed by Wide Horizon Real Estate Co. Ltd. The golf club is renowned for its beautiful landscape and spectacular scenery and includes a North American-style clubhouse, an 18-hole championship course and international-standard facilities. Well established in China’s golfing community, Luxehills was voted Favourite Course of the Year by the players on the 2008 Omega China Tour and hosted the 2008 National Golf Clubs General Managers Conference.

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Mission Hills Golf Club

It was hard for Asian amateurs to join the Masters because of the traditions in the old days. Today the creation of the Asian Amateur Championship changes everything. The winner of the new event will earn a spot in the 2010 Masters, according to the statement of Billy Payne, tournament and club chairman. The inaugural Asian Amateur Championship will be held Oct. 29-Nov. 1 at Mission Hills Golf Club, which stretches across Shenzhen and Dongguan.It is the largest golf club  in China designed by 12 world-renowned golf legends.

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