Five of the top 15 players in the world are competing this week at Pine Valley, which shoots down the notion that golf goes into hibernation for three weeks after the Masters.
Then again, this isn't a US PGA Tour event.
And it's not the Pine Valley near Philadelphia that perennially is rated the best course in America.
The Johnnie Walker Classic is being played at Pine Valley Golf Resort and Country Club, which is about an hour outside the central business district in Beijing and offers wondrous views of the Great Wall of China. The field includes Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott and Luke Donald.
"Golf is really taking off here in Asia, and events like this can only help raise its profile and appeal to an even wider audience," Els said on his Web site.
This might be golf's next frontier.
Perhaps the best evidence comes from the European PGA Tour schedule. It has more tournaments this season in China (five) than in Scotland (four), the so-called home of golf.
And that could be just the start.
IMG is close to announcing details of a tournament this November in Shanghai that will be the richest in Asia and will be limited only to tournament winners outside the American tour. The field will include Tiger Woods, who won the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan late last year.
Along with being Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg is co-president of IMG's golf division. He has taken several trips to East Asia, and he can't help but notice a market that is ripe with opportunity.
"I see major, major multinational conglomerates that want to establish a business presence now in hopes of what could happen, especially in anticipation of the Olympics," Steinberg said Tuesday. "Golf has been a pretty strong ticket so far. It is really booming there. It's really remarkable."
Jack Nicklaus has designed 12 golf courses that have opened since 1993 in China, and he has eight more being built. He recalls meeting with a group of businessmen some eight years ago who wanted to put together a professional tour.
"It never materialized," Nicklaus said. "There was not enough support. It wasn't quite there."
It's getting there more quickly than most realize.
And the US PGA Tour has noticed.
Tour officials are expected to announce this fall that the 2006 World Cup will be held in China. Last month at The Players Championship, they hosted a delegation from the Chinese Golf Association that wanted to see how a tournament is properly organized.
"They have decided they would like, at this time, to develop golf and start a professional tour," said Ed Moorhouse, co-chief operating officer at the PGA Tour. "We're talking with them about how they might go about doing that. Developing the game on a global basis is of interest to us."
The European tour has been out front in joint-sanctioning tournaments with the Asian and Australasian Tours, starting with the Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand in 1992, and moving into China for the first time in 2002 with the Hong Kong Open. Is the US PGA Tour far behind?
"I think China is one territory that they're going to look at," Steinberg said. "And look at strong."
The tour dabbled in Asia late last year by staging a post-season event in South Korea. The top 20 players from the PGA Tour money list were eligible.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but