The HSBC Masters kicks off in Sheshan today, and four of the top players – Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Yang Yong-Eum – looked in menacing form at a recent press conference we found our way into.

First they chipped golf balls straight over our terrified photographer, and then they drove balls at barges and ferries as they cruised up the Huangpu.

It was kinda like Malibu here, shooting tennis balls at television Gladiators.

That got me thinking, what if golfers dressed like TV Gladiators? And used Atlaspheres instead of golf carts to travel between shots?

 In 2016, golf will be an Olympic sport. At the press conference, the players said they were all for it, unsurprisingly. Tiger Woods dismissed the suggestion he was already eyeing up the gold: “Oh, I gotta qualify first in 2016. Christ I’ll be forty years old by then.”

“I think that golf fits the Olympics and the Olympics fits golf,” Woods said. “It’s going to be tremendous to see how it all shapes up and how exciting it will be in 2016, and we as players are certainly looking forward to having an opportunity to play for an Olympic gold medal.”

But won’t golf draw attention away from sports that don’t already have such a high profile? Can any sport be in the Olympics now? Nascar, for instance?

Should the Olympics provide affirmative action for unpopular sports, the way governments help out unpopular arts? (I’m looking at you, opera.) Or should rich, popular sports be allowed to get even richer and more popular?

Speaking of rich, Tiger Woods has just become the first athlete to bank US$1 billion in career earnings. It’s good timing, because China is one of the most expensive places in the world to play golf. We asked our buddy Phil Mickelson - seen here on a humiliatingly tiny chair - how golf in China can be made more accessible.

“It’s important to provide places of opportunity for kids to play golf. Twenty five years ago there were no golf courses in China and now there are a few hundred and a lot more coming. It’s important to have facilities where kids can go play. When I grew up playing golf, when Tiger grew up playing golf, and everyone else, we were able to play par three courses or work at a driving range or go play public golf courses. We have a lot of great private courses – it will be important to have public access so that all players can go play fairly inexpensively."