Given the burgeoning Chinese interest in golf, Scottish authorities have begun an effort to attract the Chi-Coms to the home of golf.

In the article, Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell said

he admired China’s growing love of golf, but said “a golfer who never plays in Scotland is a golfer unfulfilled”.

Chinese tourism could be worth about £70m to Scotland over the next four years, it has been estimated. Restrictions on Chinese tourists travelling to the UK were removed last year.

The interest of the Chinese in golf only goes as far as the evil old men who run that totalitarian police state have an interest. They have, in recent years, sponsored several high stakes tournaments and are building numerous luxury resort courses. Given that the majority of the country lives in grinding poverty, it seems that they must have better things to do with their money. I find it even more ironic that in the “people’s paradise”, they have decided to take up the sport of the Captains and the Kings.

In 1949, Mao Tse-tung took time out from murdering his own people to order that all of the country’s golf courses be razed to “banish the millionaire’s game.” The bloodthirsty old tyrant is probably spinning in his grave right now.

Even more interesting: the Chinese sports ministry recently announced that it was starting a drive to catapult Chinese athletes into the top of the golfing world. It’ll surely be an effort like they’ve put forth to get to the top of the Olympic games. The government will identify talent early, take them away from their parents and put them up in government dormitories where they will live, breathe and eat golf.

Hmm. It actually doesn’t sound all that bad.

Of course, they may just be trying to find a place to dump all of those counterfeit clubs that they have been producing. I’ve also read that they have exported millons of fake top-of-the-line golf balls, too. (How can you tell if you have a Chinese Communist knock off ball? It goes left.)

However, given that the Chinese claim to have invented golf themselves, perhaps it is they that should be trying to attact the Scots.

This isn’t anything like Ben Hogan’s “secret.” In fact, George Archer’s secret doesn’t have anything to do with golf.  You see, the Master’s Champion (who passed away in 2005) was unable to read. The problem went undiagnosed throughout his life, but likely was dyslexia and a non verbal learning disability.

In a heartbreaking article in Golf for Women, his wife tells of the efforts that they went through to both hide, and cope with, his problem. She read the mail and the contracts, filled out the tournament entry forms, paid all the bills, read the road maps and the local rules sheets. Archer avoided endorsemetns because he was afraid that he might have to read something; he apparently was worried that some fan would ask him to personalize an autograph.

I know a thing or two about coping with a handicap. With a “profound” hearing loss since birth, I have developed numerous defensive strategies for coping in the hearing world. Most people never realize that anything is wrong, since I have become a master lipreader (although my school-for-the-deaf-manufactured speech does apparently sound a little odd to most—but people always tell me they just thought it was a regional accent). And my life has gotten a lot easier since I’ve been married. My wife orders for me in noisy restaurants, makes phone calls and generally runs interference whenever possible.

I’m not an emotional guy (just ask my wife. It’s her biggest complaint), but the Archer story got me. You should give it a read.

Here’s a classic article from the July 1953 Golf Digest on Ike’s game.

On President’s Day, it’s a great look back at the attitudes and politics of the day. Note the use of a phrase that would never be used today:

Needless to say there has been some criticism of Eisenhower’s golfing proclivities. Political opponents have inferred that he seems more interesting in breaking 90 on the golf course than in breaking the deadlock in Korea. There has even been an attempt on the part of certain radical elements to vilify Ike in the public mind by linking him with the “rich businessman’s hobby.” Such demagogues apparently haven’t heard what has happened to golf in the past 30 years or so.

But the former five-star general doesn’t seem to mind--or even notice--these flank attacks. He plays golf for vitally needed relaxation and exercise. To him it’s a tonic--like reading, fishing, napping, TV-viewing or some other activity might be to another man. Ike uses golf to help combat the fatigue and strain of what has been referred to as a “man-killing” job. Friends say that he can arrive at a course completely fagged out, play a secluded round with one or two friends and end up fresh as a daisy.

William Howard Taft At Golf.

If horse racing is the sport of kings, then golf is the sport of Presidents. Fourteen of the last seventeen presidents have (except Hoover, Truman and Carter) played the game. As a teacher of political science, I just can’t let President’s Day go by without tipping a hat to our presidential golfers:

• The presidential golfing tradition began with 300 pound William Howard Taft. Although warned by political mentor Theodore Roosevelt that it was not good for his image, Taft continued to play. He once turned away a Chilean diplomat in favor of playing golf. Taft, a lawyer, never wanted to be president and eventually ended up with the position he coveted: Supreme Court Justice.
• Dwight Eisenhower’s obsession with the game had a lot to do with golf’s rising popularity in the 1950s. Ike reportedly was a good golfer who broke 80 several times. His weakness was the putter. Eisenhower is said to have played 800 times during his eight years in office., and was a frequent figure at Augusta National.
• In spite of all the jokes, Gerald Ford was a terrific athlete who lettered at the University of Michigan. His golf game was solid, and he regularly shot in the 80s. Late night comics teased him about hitting people with his shots, but Ford tended to play in more public spaces, where people were lining the fairways.
• Woodrow Wilson played as many as 1,200 rounds while president. Even snow didn’t slow him; he had the balls painted red. Wilson was on the course when he received the news of the sinking of the Lustitania. In spite of his dedication to the game, though, he wasn’t very good. His wife, with far less dedication to the game apparently was capable of regularly beating him.
• JFK apparently also was a golfer, but his handlers made the political decision to hide that fact: they apparently wanted to separate him from the image of his predecessor as First Duffer. As the story goes, Pierre Salinger finally told people that Kennedy was golfing when they began to wonder where he was off to on all of those afternoons. Salinger apparently thought he had to tell people about the golf to deflect the suspicion that he was carrying on with other women. Of course, we now know that he WAS carrying on.
• And speaking of adulterers, Bill Clinton, has gained a reputation for playing fast and loose with the rules of golf. One playing companion said that “it took him 200 strokes to score an 82”
• The Bushes come from a distinguished golf heritage. Their ancestor George Herbert Walker was USGA president in the 1920s. The Walker Cup is named for him. But as much as I like Dubya and Sr., I don’t think I can forgive them for what they do to the game of golf. The Bushes, you see, play speed golf, where score doesn’t matter as much as the time consumed.

Eisenhower practices abord the USS Canberra, 1957

For more on Presidents and their golf game, you should read First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush

Before Tiger Woods, there was Charlie Sifford, Lee Wright, Bill Spiller and Lee Elder. Africans Americans have never been fully embraced by the sport of golf, which makes the history all the more interesting.

Just in time for Black History Month, a company called Negro Golf League Clothing has written a press release with some interesting tidbits on African American golf history.