I have to thank local golf enthusiasts for providing a great deal of innocent amusement for those of us who have no strong feelings about the game, and perhaps subscribe to the observation – first recorded in 1910 and often misattributed in a crisper version to Mark Twain — “to play golf is to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk.”
We get it. To have a golf course to play on if you like golf is nice. To have three courses to play on is even better. And to see one of them defiled by the construction of a public housing estate is distressing. Quite apart from the loss of eight holes, there is the prospect of playing a rich man’s game under the windows of thousands of publicly housed paupers. Might someone laugh at your scuffed shots?
Still the creativity displayed at recent hearings on the government’s plan to use part of a golf course for housing speaks of desperation.
Let us start with the owl. This owl, needless to say a rare and threatened species, could apparently be found roosting in one of the trees which is likely to be removed when the golf holes go.
This is not a convincing argument at all. A golf course is not a nature reserve. Those strips of woodland are not provided as a refuge for homeless hooters; they are just there to keep the golfers far enough apart to reduce accidents.
Meanwhile the creation of the course itself requires the construction of a wholly artificial landscape. Large quantities of fertiliser encourage the grass; generous dollops of weedkiller discourage its competition. Wild animals which might threaten the grass (e.g. pigs) or the golfers (e.g. pythons) are vigorously discouraged.
A golf course, in short, has all the disadvantages of a zoo and none of the compensating advantages.
Then we come to the question of whether the truncated (two-and-a-half courses) remains of the facility will still be enough for the purposes of entertaining visiting events, one or two of which, we were told, could give Hong Kong a “big boost”.
As a piece of geometry this does not add up. It is a characteristic of international golf contests that all the participants play on the same 18 holes. That leaves the space occupied by the remaining 28 holes in which organisers could surely fit the usual infrastructure of tents, car parks, television towers and what have you.
As a piece of economics it does not make sense either. It appears that just as no millionaire fraudster fails to find a lawyer who can explain his innocence, no international spasm of sport fails to find an economist who will predict a “big boost” for the staging country or territory.
These claims have lately been subjected to careful examination and been found to be wholly fictitious. Even big sport circuses like the Olympics or the World Cup finals do not move the needle in a substantial economy and putting them on absorbs a large amount of money paid in advance, little of which comes back.
Foreign spectators at events of this kind come in three categories. There are those who were already in the country, resident or visiting, and took in the sport as an added attraction. Then there are those who were planning a visit, for business or pleasure, and changed their schedule to include the sport as well. The third, smallest category, comprises those who actually make a special trip.
Analysis of the audience routinely finds that most of them are locals. If they had not stumped up for tickets, hot dogs, jugs of Carlsberg, etc., they would have spent similar amounts on other entertainments on offer locally.
It may be that the “big boost” on offer is reputational rather than economic. Hong Kong has had some rough press lately, particularly (by coincidence) in some countries where golf is a major participant sport.
Unfortunately these are places where the ability to assemble a cast of young millionaires and watch them fight over a large pile of Saudi money is not going to do a great deal for our reputation. It’s a better story than the current efforts to encourage and recruit international bounty hunters, but that’s a low bar.
The most cherishable argument against desecrating our palace of golf came from a local resident, who reported that he had resorted to his nearest temple, and there cast the fortune-telling sticks which are a common facility in such places. The sticks had warned that Hong Kong would face a catastrophic future if the threatened holes were replaced by public housing.
Now I have an open mind on this sort of stuff. It is not the Hymns Ancient and Modern or Book of Common Prayer kind of thing which featured in my youth. Still, every New Year I am down at our local temple, putting the permitted three joss sticks in a sandbox in front of a multi-story gold-plated God. I spin the windmill, beat the drum, make a contribution to the temple expenses and buy a small lucky charm which we hang inside the front door.
There is more to life than science, logic and “common sense.” I do not claim to know what that “more” might be but we all have our own ways of acknowledging that it is there.
So, I am happy to respect the views of those people who suppose that the fortune sticks, or the various other things used for this purpose – trained birds, tossed coins, crystal balls – may give some indication of the road ahead.
I am, however, very dubious about the utility of this sort of thing for the makers of detailed town planning decisions. A prudent fortune-telling stick may express a general view on the desirability of golf courses, but a prediction of dire effects for the territory as a whole if the golf club is pruned… strains credulity.
And what, one wonders, is the Town Planning Board to do if some rival prophet, anxious to help the public housing programme, tells it that a precisely opposite message emerged from his close examination of the entrails of slaughtered chickens?
In the end this is no laughing matter. I sympathise with those golf club members asking “Why us?” when other possibilities are being neglected. The People’s Liberation Army’s ample land-holdings are untouchable because of politics, the Jockey Club’s because it shares its proceeds with the government on a large scale. Too late now for a lucrative sideline in golf gambling.
Still, unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with our lovely leaders, Hong Kong has thousands of golfers, and hundreds of thousands of people in horror housing. Business must come before pleasure.
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