tim's experiment

This blog has been quiet for a few days because I was in Henan playing for the opening of a golf tournament.  I was not, I hasten to add, playing golf. As the game was invented in Scotland there is occasionally a demand for Scottish music on golfing occasions.  Actually I have never thought much of golf. I started playing hockey at a very early age so hitting a ball which was sitting still always seemed a bit like shooting a dead duck. Still the game obviously gives some people a great deal of pleasure.

There is occasional controversy about the amount of space consumed, and the amount of water and fertiliser required to maintain a large acreage of exotic foreign landscape in an alien environment.  On the other hand it can be said in defence of the game when played with Chinese characteristics that it is much more labour-intensive than it is in the west. In the suburban golf courses which I occasionally visited in England the members frequently arrived in their golfing attire, which in those less fashion-conscious days just comprised a pair of old trousers and a wind-cheater. They changed into their spiky shoes in the car park.  They carried their own clubs round the course for 18 holes and the only club employee whose services they required was the bar tender in the “19th hole” to which they resorted for a few beers to offset any salubrious effect the exercise might have had on their build. They then, the law in these matters being less enforced in those days, probably drove home.  So a golf club was a large hole in the landscape which employed very few people.

Golf with Chinese characteristics is rather different. The member arrives, usually in a recent-model SUV with heavily tinted glass, under the porte-cochere, where he is greeted by an impressive crowd, even if you disregard the associate professor and a few mates on bagpipes. The driver pulls the remote thing which opens the back door, and the member’s clubs are whisked away while the specialised meeters and greeters are bidding him welcome and conducting him to the dining room. Later the clubs will be found in the back of his electric golf cart, which also has a driver. Along with the clubs will be two members of the corps of caddies, a large formation consisting mainly of young ladies whose selection was clearly  based on more important things than their knowledge of golf. The caddies will carry the bag when play reaches parts of the course inaccessible by road. The player only actually lifts a club when he wants to play a shot. The pursuit of healthy exercise is clearly not a major part of the proceedings.

I do not criticise. Agriculture in Henan does not look much fun. Judging by the size of the plots a lot of work is still done by hand. Probably the golf club is a very welcome addition to the district’s facilities. In the light of the alternatives a career replacing rich people’s divots may be very attractive. 

I am less enthusiastic about golf in Hong Kong. The game does need a lot of space. It seems that in our city there is never any space for poor people’s housing but a hectare or two can always be found for rich people’s sports. People are sleeping under fly-overs to make room for other people to try to whack a pebble into a jam jar from 300 yards. It ought to take some of the fun out of it, but it doesn’t, apparently.