Golf and China's Tech Crowd

Kevin Maney takes a Mulligan: It seems that golf is exploding in China. A few years ago, I found out first-hand that Beijing's tech community is totally into the game. I joined a regular outing for a day that included lots of talk about international business, good old-fashioned smoozing, and a lunch with donkey on the menu.

I had gone to Beijing to do some reporting for a Wired story, and hooked up with Chinese VC Calvin Quek, who in turn suggested I join him for a day of golf with a couple dozen others from the Chinese tech community. We drove about 90 minutes to the Beijing Taiwei golf resort, out near the Great Wall. From my day there, I learned that Chinese business people spent most of the SARS outbreak -- when offices were closed -- on the golf course, and that the club house did actually have donkey on the menu.

I wrote in a column at the time:

Playing golf with some of them is not unlike playing golf with any group anywhere. Same style and approach to the game. Same etiquette. Same curses -- sometimes in English -- when a shot lands in the water.

Sand traps -- bunkers -- apparently don't have a Chinese equivalent word, so they're called "bunk." I'm hearing this word many times during the day, usually in sympathy as my Chinese partners are describing where my ball has landed. "Ohhhh. Bunk."

It's all good. This development can only help international relations.