China, once the world’s hottest golf market, is now all but frozen stiff, thanks mostly to the latest ban on construction that threatens farm land, which the Chinese view as one of their most vital natural resources. For now, developers, contractors and architects are waiting patiently for the central government to issue new policies to regulate golf construction.
“I’m very concerned about the new crackdown, but it’s needed,” said O’Brien McGarey, one of the principals of Englewood-based Dye Designs Group. “It’s about time they had some regulations.”
Nobody wants golf construction to resume as much as the Colorado-based wing of the Dye family. The Dyes have 11 projects in various states of design and construction in the People’s Republic, and not one of them is currently active.
McGarey married into the Dye family. He’s the husband of Cynthia Dye-McGarey, who, as the niece of Pete Dye, grew up in the golf business and has been designing courses in China for the better part of a decade. In fact, these days the couple’s three sons also spend most of their time in China, designing and shaping courses and tending to the family’s business.
So far, Dye-McGarey has two courses under her belt, West Coast Golf Club on Hainan Island and 27 holes at CTS Tycoon (Shenzhen) Golf Club in Guangdong Province. She has projects-in-waiting all over the People’s Republic (not to mention work in Azerbaijan, New Caledonia, and Portugal), but she’s staked out a special claim in Yunnan Province, with four projects that carry a potential total of 99 holes.
Her highest-profile commission in the province has arguably come from Skyait Golf Club, an emerging golf mega-center in Xundian County, roughly an hour’s drive from central Kunming. At build-out, the 10,000-acre community will include a slew of houses, a resort-style hotel with a conference center, restaurants, various recreational amenities, and a record-approaching 10 golf courses.
“It’s all a matter of status and perception,” said McGarey. “They all know the Mission Hills story.”
Skyait is being developed by Tianshi Tourism Development Company, Ltd., a privately owned group. The company has already built the community’s first two 18-hole courses, the Lake View and Whole View (or perhaps “Hole” View) tracks.
The Dyes have been hired to produce Skyait’s next two 18-hole courses, and possibly a nine-hole, par-3 course as well. Dye-McGarey will design course number three, a stand-alone, tournament-worthy venue to be known as the Championship course, and she’ll lend support to Matthew, one of her sons, who’ll design the fourth course, the Community course. The latter, which will be flanked by houses and a hotel, will be Matthew’s first solo project.
“It’s time for him to earn his wings,” quips his father.
Tianshi Tourism had planned to break ground on Skyait’s third course in late 2011 and on its fourth in the fall of 2012, but it can’t begin until the central government resolves its issues with golf.
This story originally appeared in the World Edition of the Golf Course Report, in a slightly different form. For a sample copy of the World Edition, call 301/680-9460 or write to WorldEdition@aol.com.