Even today, Chung Shan remains quite the sight. As one might expect of a 25-year-old course, the Grand Dame of Chinese golf isn’t long by today’s titanium-enriched, jumbo-headed standards, measuring some 6,396 metres from the tips (Chung Shan could be the only course in China that follows the national metric standard). But what it lacks in length, it more than makes up in charm, with paper-barks bordering its winding fairways and a variety of fruit trees and blossoming shrubs adding a delightful diversity to its backdrops. While modern courses in the mainland tend to be dominated by huge swathes of both sand and water, the Palmer Course is a much more subtle test, its resistance to low scoring a result of strategic design and its small, beautifully-shaped greens. In truth, it plays like one of the heathland gems that you find in the English Home counties. Take away the Laoshanwei hills that hove into view on a number of holes and first time players could almost be forgiven for thinking they’ve been transported 6,000 miles west to leafy Berkshire.
The Palmer Course is something of a rarity in tropical Guangdong because it features bentgrass rather than Bermuda greens. Bentgrass is a fine leafed, somewhat delicate strain that is normally used in generally temperate areas. By rights it shouldn’t be able to cope with the heat and humidity of southern China, but it appears to do just fine, and come the cooler winter months, the Palmer is home to the smoothest and quickest greens in the province. Stimpmeter readings in excess of 11 are the norm.
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