Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have both tipped China to become a golfing powerhouse, saying it was only a matter of time with the game’s popularity exploding.
The country only opened its first course — the Chung Shan Hot Springs Golf Club about 80km across the Pearl River Estuary from Hong Kong — in 1984. Twenty-five years later and, by some estimates, it now has around 500 courses and the world’s top players see huge growth to come.
Woods said that Chinese sportsmen had excelled at most sports that had government backing, and once that came for golf there would be no limits.
“If you look at countries like Sweden, where the government got behind kids’ programs and funded them and let them travel into Italy and Spain, just look at how many Swedish golfers they produced,” he said yesterday. “China has done the same thing in pretty much every other sport, except for golf.”
“It will be interesting to see what happens if they make a push toward that, and if they do then there’s no question they will become a powerhouse in golf, due to the size of the population and the number of courses being built,” Woods said.
Golf’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics would also help, added Woods, who tees off on the HSBC Champions in Shanghai today.
The event has been upgraded to become an elite World Golf Championship tournament and world No. 2 Mickelson said it reflected how far China had come in such a short time.
“With golf becoming an Olympic sport, with China’s commitment to the Olympics and golf, I believe the exposure of the world’s best players in Shanghai will drive the game of golf in China and in Asia,” he said.
Zhang Xiaoning, general secretary of the China Golf Association, called this year a momentous year for the sport in China.
“It is 25 years since our first modern golf course was built and this is the perfect time to pause and consider everything that has been achieved by our players, our administrators and our golf industry,” he said.
“Now we must work hard to capitalize on the opportunities, work hard with our golfers to prove they have the talent to compete at this level and to convince the world that our players deserve more chances at this level,” Zhang said.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Marcus Rashford’s first goals for Aston Villa on Sunday inspired a 3-0 win against Preston North End that sent his side into the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time in 10 years. Rashford struck twice in the second half at Deepdale to end Preston’s stubborn resistance before Jacob Ramsey wrapped up Villa’s long-awaited return to the last four. Villa are to face Crystal Palace — 3-0 winners at Fulham on Saturday — in the semi-finals at Wembley Stadium in London. Revitalized since joining Villa on loan from Manchester United during the January transfer window, Rashford is beginning to show the form that
RSS