Far and away

How many golf courses are in China?
We have about 240 throughout the country, but they’re concentrated in the main cities, which are on the coastline.

Have there been many course openings lately?
We have a short golf course history. It’s only 20 years old. The first golf course opened in 1984. During the past five years, golf course supply has increased about 30 percent.

Louise Lam

Are most courses owned by the government?
Golf courses are owned mainly by foreign investors. However, about 10 years ago, the local governments and local investors started venturing into the market.

Are there many foreigners operating golf courses?
About 10 years ago, when I started working in China, about 30 percent to 40 percent of the new golf courses were maintained by foreigners. But five years ago, local people started taking over the maintenance and management. Now only 10 percent of those maintaining golf courses are foreigners. But at most high-end golf clubs, foreigners are still taking care of the maintenance.

Do you predict a significant increase of the number of golf courses that will be developed during the next 10 years?
The government doesn’t encourage any more golf courses, and it doesn’t issue any more permits. However, there are still new projects coming up and eventually will open.

How is development happening when the government isn’t issuing permits?
Developers have support from the local government. The central government policy doesn’t support golf course development because it thinks golf courses are using too much farmland. There’s a possibility the government will only support golf course projects that are built on wasteland and areas that aren’t suitable for farming. So there’s a possibility of a boom in the future.

How did you get into the golf course industry?
Well, I’m not Chinese. I’m Malaysian. I started my career in 1994 after I graduated from university. I worked at three golf courses in Malaysia before I came to China. I worked at two of them when I was doing my practical training as part of my university studies, and I worked at another golf course for a year. Subsequently, the owner of that course started to invest in China. He invested in a course in Guangdong province, which is the province nearest to Hong Kong.

In 1995, I was sent to this new project after one year of intensive training. The golf course happened to be a successful and profitable project. It’s a 27-hole course (with 18 holes lighted) designed by JMP of the United States. After two and a half years there – after going through the grow-in and maintenance stages – I resigned and moved on to join the biggest golf club in the world, Mission Hills, which is in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It has 10 18-hole golf courses. Thereafter, I moved from Guangdong province to the northern part of China. I moved from warm-season grass to cool-season grass. Currently, I’m at Tianjin Warner International Golf Club, which is an 18-hole course owned by an American, Jason Chen, who hails from Taiwan but resides in the United States.

Were there many other people in your class studying to become golf course superintendents?
No. I was in horticultural science majoring in turf and landscaping when I was at the university. About 5 percent of my classmates went to work at golf clubs after graduating.

That seems like a small percentage. Why is that?
In Malaysia, we have about 270 golf courses. Not only is the market saturated, the university students find it’s too tough to work at golf courses.

You mentioned a night course. Is night golf popular?
It’s popular in the southern part of China, and in the North as well. Nowadays, at least nine holes of any new project will be lighted.

Does the course close during the year?
The course, which is located in a technological economic development area, is open all year round. We have many foreigners working in this area, which is industrial, and we have many foreign investors, which drives the number of rounds played a year.

What are the green fees?
Normally, on the weekdays, it costs $75 for walk-in guests; and on the weekends, it’s $100. Members pay 40-percent less than the visitor rate.

Has the number of rounds increased at the course during the past five years?
Yes, definitely. We’ve had a constant growth of 10 percent to 15 percent every year.

Why is that?
More local people are starting to play the game. Golf has become more popular among the community in China, and golfers have influence on their friends.

How big is your staff?
I have 20 permanent workers and 10 seasonal workers during the summer.

Is it easy to find workers?
It’s not a problem. The population is 1.4 billion, so we have sufficient manpower. But we need to provide training for them.

So workers don’t need previous experience to work on the golf course?
Not necessarily because I train them from scratch.

What’s your annual maintenance budget?
$250,000 to $300,000, which has remained the same for the past several years. However, when turf equipment needs to be replaced, we have a special budget for that.

What turfgrass diseases do you deal with?
Ones that are quite common everywhere in the world. We have pithium species, dollar spot, brown patch, etc. However, all these diseases are under control.

Louise Lam is the golf course superintendent at Tianjin Warner International Golf Club in China.

Explain your pesticide program.
We don’t spray from November to March. It’s not necessary because there’s no disease activity. In April, I will schedule a preventive spraying program on the greens. We have a careful pest control program. Mostly, we do preventive spraying and some curative spraying from June to August because of the high humidity during the hot summer. I’m careful from June to August – these three months are crucial. Although we have summer pithium threats, a careful irrigation program, appropriate aeration, a tight fungicide spray program schedule and other cultural practices help give us healthy bentgrass. Normally, we don’t spend much on fungicides. Expenses are concentrated on greens and tees mainly.

What’s the height of cut on the greens?
The cutting height depends on the season. Our highest height of cut is 0.19 inches (5 mm) during the winter, and then in spring and summer during the growing season, we’re cutting the grass from 0.12 inches to 0.14 inches (3 to 3.5 mm). During the summer, bentgrass doesn’t grow well and is almost dormant during the heat peak. The roots are relatively short. It’s common to cut bentgrass a bit higher during the summer. However, I maintain the similar growing season’s height of cut by controlling the water supply at appropriate levels and the right timing counts.

Is water usage a big issue?
So far, we have enough water to use. Our golf course is in the city, and because the course is built on a salt field at the coastline, the water from the lakes isn’t suitable to be used as irrigation water because it contains high salt levels. The pH is exceeding nine. To assure the healthy growth of the turf, civic water (tap water) is used as the irrigation water, and liners were installed underneath all the irrigation lakes.

We have a good understanding with the local government. It supplies us with sufficient water at a reasonable rate. Since last year, the local government started supplying treated water (recycled water) to us.

What’s an example of a best management practice you use at Tianjin Warner?
I was well trained by a golf course superintendent from America – Martin Alexander – when I was in Malaysia. Throughout my working experience and on-the-job training programs, I adopted a good maintenance program and an integrated pest management program. I don’t use many chemicals, and I’m environmentally conscious.

For the past 10 years that I’ve been in China, I’ve worked with many Chinese, and I share my knowledge with them. I maintain a golf course by using the standard cultural practices that anybody would use in the States. When I was in the southern part of China, I dealt with paspalum, Bermudagrass and zoysiagrass. Different types of grasses have different types of cultural-practice needs. The end result is to maintain and provide a nice-looking golf course through proper cultural practices.

My philosophy of golf course maintenance is to allow the golfers to play the game with the least number of interferences and provide them the most consistent playing surface. In Asia, the labor cost is low, and the laborers are cooperative when working odd hours. We work a lot at night. We do chemical spraying, fairway topdressing and greens hollow tining at night to open the course for play every day with the least disturbance.

What’s the main difference between China and the United States relating to golf course maintenance?
A shortage of well-trained turf management workers. Because the history of golf in China is so short, there’s no special programs to train any students to take care of turfgrass on a golf course. However, pasture programs are well conducted in the Chinese agricultural education history. The students are knowledgeable about pastures, but they don’t seem to have any concept about growing grass and maintaining turfgrass on golf courses. Besides, the horticulture program is more focused on landscaping. There’s no four-year turf management program in China. We don’t have adequate, local, qualified golf course maintenance manpower to maintain high quality golf courses.

Additionally, the availability of golf course supplies, especially purchasing turf equipment parts, is a big headache for most of us here. If a part needs to be replaced unexpectedly, it takes at least 20 days (the so-called the express service) to get the part from a local distributor because most of the turf equipment is imported from abroad. We were hardly visited by supply sales technicians in the past, however, that has improved recently. National and international golf shows and exhibitions are good ways to obtain new product information. Of course, surfing the Internet also is used widely for the new generation of golf course workers.

Have you been to America?
Yes. I go there annually for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America’s Education Conference and Show.

I’ve been a part of the GCSAA for five years, and I attend the seminars to earn the education points to maintain my Class A status and application for certification. I plan to be a certified golf course superintendent as soon as possible.

Are there associations like the GCSAA in Asia?
Yes, but not as magnificent as the GCSAA. The Chinese started their own kind of association similar to the GCSAA. The first meeting was held last November, and the “Course Management Committee of China Golf” is going to be formed in the next month. However, I’m not sure if I’m going to be part of that association because I have a pretty busy schedule.

Elaborate about your career goals.
Currently, I’m extremely happy with my work as a golf course superintendent. Besides maintaining turf, overseeing the golf operations as well is making my job more challenging. I have a plan to move up. However, during the next few years, I wish to carry out more chemical and fertilizer research that I’m conducting with local producers. We have experiment plots in the turf nursery.
What I’m going through now is my career path – moving on to higher management at a golf club. Managing a golf club professionally is my future goal. GCN

Louise Lam can be reached at louiselam@sohu.com.