While many urbanites may wish to live near golf courses, for they are perceived to lend an aura of opulence to the properties and push up home prices, their presence is anathema to rural residents.
The Beijing News reported on Monday that some villagers in suburban Dalian, Liaoning Province, are suffering a severe shortage of tap water, with rationing twice a day. Many now have to rely on rainwater or bottled water.
The right to water is not a concern for their neighbor, a 330,000-square-meter golf course, whose sprinklers are spraying water almost non-stop to keep its turf emerald green.
By rough estimates, the 36-hole course consumes more than 3 million tons of water each year, equivalent to the annual consumption of 1 million households.
The contrast between the woes of parched villagers and the club's profligate water use has stoked public anger at the inequality in water allocation.
More appalling is the fact that another golf course in the area, which sources its water from a reservoir for drinking water and irrigation, has been discharging untreated sewage into the reservoir.
The sewage contains a high level of chemical fertilizer sand pesticides, which leak into a river, giving off a rank smell and making the water non-potable.
Golf, less a sport than a way of life, is highly prized by China's newly minted rich and enjoys the glamour of a gentleman's game.
Chinese interpretation of gentleman's game may differ from an Englishman's, which is about respect for rules and fair play, but whatever the differences in definition, there's nothing gentlemanly about the way some golf clubs operate in China.
They can afford to be smug since very little has been done to crack down on their wanton water overdraft and sewage discharge. The Beijing News reported that the Dalian water authorities pleaded ignorance when asked how the polluting golf club was allowed to extract groundwater wholesale and at what price it's charged.
While the immense greens of golf courses look inviting, they are well guarded and off limits to troublemakers and lesser beings.
When a CCTV camera crew recently tried to film a golf course under construction in Beijing, the official in charge threatened to smash their camera. A rare snub to the powerful state broadcaster but also a hint at the golfing industry's growing assertiveness.
As one of the most parched cities on the planet, Beijing would seem to be ill-suited to water-guzzling golf courses. Nevertheless, the city is home to some 60 courses, sheer lunacy that will lower the water table and exacerbate its aridness.
CCTV reported on Wednesday that Beijing golf courses require 40 million tons of groundwater yearly. Groundwater overuse on this scale is unsustainable and catastrophic. Nationwide, golf courses have been spreading like a monster sucking lakes and rivers dry and encroaching relentlessly on arable land.
It's public knowledge that some localities are hell-bent on building golf courses to lift their image and attract investment, regardless of the state decree in 2004 prohibiting future construction of greens.
The decree turned out to be just as effective as measures to curb exorbitant housing prices. The number of China's golf courses has grown exponentially from 170 in 2004 to 600 today. The only place golf hasn't conquered is the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Over the past two months there has been a heightened call in the media for restoration of illegally built golf courses to farmland.
By Ni Tao
Business & Investment Opportunities
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