The New Elite

When many of today’s top Chinese players were starting out, a career in golf looked barely more glamorous than working in a factory.

“The professionals in the game are still blue collar guys; that’s similar to the way it started in the UK or in the States,” Washburn says. “The early pros were almost second class citizens because nobody else wanted to do these jobs.”

“In China, the rewards for effort in golf are disproportionately low,” Zhang Lianwei says. “Our incomes don’t compare to golfers overseas. At the very beginning, when I was a caddy, I was paid RMB 170 per month. I always felt hungry then. I was 178cm tall but only weighed 60kg, and I still hit 800 balls every day. I could not afford a club, so I rented one. Money is important for a golfer – without it you cannot afford flight tickets, hotels, or even to enter competitions. I used to borrow money in order to compete. That was a challenge, indeed.”

Despite these difficulties, pioneers like Zhang seized the opportunity to learn about golf and find jobs as golf instructors and players. It was typically a pragmatic decision, a means to a better life than they could otherwise expect.

“There were hardly any coaches in China at that point,” Washburn says. “If you trained for a couple of years you could get a job as a golf instructor, and you’d be making a better living than being a security guard, being a farmer, being a factory worker.” 

Now, however, things have changed. “Since golf has been around for 25 years now in China, you have a younger generation who’ve grown up, for the first time, being aware of golf,” Washburn says. “A lot of them are very rich and their parents can afford to get them quality coaching, whereas the first generation guys are all self-taught – they wouldn’t have been able to afford coaching and even if they could there was nobody in China to coach them, because they are the first generation of golfers. 

“I think the self-taught, gritty pros, the pioneers of the game in China, their window of opportunity for competitive success is closing. Maybe in five to 10 years, if you look at the bios of Chinese golfers, they may all start to look the same, as they now do in more established countries. 

“I don’t think it’ll be long before stories like theirs cease to exist,” Washburn says.