The Chinese kid couldn't have been more than 4, but he knew just what he wanted: to hug the slender man who was walking toward him and smiling. And so it was Saturday that Tiger Woods got a big hug on the knees. And so it was that Tiger Woods hugged right back.
The East may have been red once, but on Saturday, on a sprawling golf course in the mountains outside China's vaunted Special Economic Zone city of Shenzhen, it was all green. And at the center of it all was ``Taige Wuzi,'' or simply ``Lao Hu'' (old Tiger) -- making his first trip to China.
``Let's see what you guys got,'' Woods told a passel of young golfers hand-picked to be tutored by him at the lush Mission Hills Country Club.
If Woods isn't yet a phenomenon in China, as many insist, he will be shortly; the PR machine is operating in full gear. More than five busloads of reporters -- nearly all of them Chinese -- were shipped into the mountains north of Shenzhen to tell the country about the non-tournament event.
Woods is visiting China to play three noted players from the region -- one from the mainland, one from Taiwan Province and one from Hong Kong.
Also being touted-- the rise of golfing across China -- inaccessible to most Chinese though it may be.
``Today is a very special day for golf in China,'' said David Chu, chairman of the Mission Hills Country Club.
It's also a visible indicator of the once-unthinkable changes that have taken place in China.
Here -- in a country club, no less -- hundreds of wealthy Chinese, many from nearby Hong Kong, paid a reported US$138 per head to see Woods in action. And on Sunday, even richer ones were set to fork over what some in Shenzhen said was US$18,000 per hole to golf alongside the game's great.
There's more. Breakfast in the richly paneled Peony Room, overlooking the pool and a fairway.
Asian Golf Monthly called Woods' visit ``a historic occasion for golf in the region.''
``The dynamic growth of the Royal and Ancient game in the Middle Kingdom is unparalleled anywhere in the world today,'' it said.
And like golf elsewhere, it's big business. Sponsors' logos -- Motorola and Wilson among them -- were splattered everywhere.
Security was even tighter than usual for Woods -- a mixture, perhaps, of Chinese authoritarianism and post-Sept. 11 jitters. His golf-cart motorcade was followed by a jogging cadre of country-club guards with berets and white gloves, talking into their sleeves.
``Tiger will be speaking. Be as quiet as possible,'' the loudspeaker admonished in English and Chinese. Metal barricades went up -- to hold back the reporters.
Mission Hills is beautiful, set against mountains and lined with palms. Many of China's earliest golf courses were built in balmy Guangdong Province, where Shenzhen is located. Zhongshan was the first to build in 1984.
China hosted its first professional golf match, the Pacific qualifying event for the Dunhill Nations Cup, in January 1988. Today, China has some 150 courses, 60 in Guangdong alone. Another sits outside Beijing, near the Great Wall and the tombs of 12 Ming emperors.
The First Tee, a Florida-based group that tries to spread the golf gospel across the world and attract young players, sponsored the clinic where Woods tutored the youths. Its senior vice president, Joe Barrow Jr., called the expansion of golf in China ``a long-term project.''
``I'm very confident that golf will be accepted here,'' Barrow said Saturday. He acknowledged, though, that more people need to have access to the game, which many perceive as being available only to those with money.
``The accessibility question is not only about China but all over the world,'' Barrow said.
Woods, meanwhile, concentrated on the kids.
One got the compliment of a lifetime and walked away beaming.
``Sit down,'' the world's best golfer told him. ``You're too good."
(China Daily November 10, 2001)
