WORLD CUP A REDUNDANT AFTERTHOUGHT IN 21st Century GOLF

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE

By OLIVER BROWN, in Haikou, China

Adjusting blearily to the dense air and dragonflies of Hainan Island after an 18-hour journey, I encounter definitive proof of golf’s existence in a parallel universe.

For at this week’s World Cup in a resort destination dubbed the ‘Chinese Hawaii,’ every effort is taken to cosset Rory McIlroy and company from the mayhem that marks the real China.

Take the roads, for instance. I have been cut up by maniacal moped riders in Athens and taken Istanbul taxis whose drivers barely blink at reversing into four lanes of onrushing cars, but I have seen nothing quite like the traffic purgatory that pertains in downtown Haikou.
My minibus driver’s notion of navigation on Wednesday was to scythe in front of assorted cement mixers while sounding his horn with an almost deranged monotony. And yet the second he turned his vehicle through the gates here at Mission Hills’ vast golf complex, there was a soldier in a tin helmet to salute him.

Top golfers assume that their endless travelling renders them consummate citizens of the world, when in truth they occupy tiny enclaves of six-star privilege in which none of the local rules apply.
Among the painful aspects of reporting in this country is the ‘Great Firewall of China’, the blanket of internet censorship that blocks access to Twitter, YouTube and most other social media. Step inside the clubhouse, though, and such restrictions are miraculously lifted.

“Great place,” Ian Poulter tweeted on Wednesday on a first exploration of this Hainan haven, and no wonder. It is as if some giant version of Woburn has just been dropped in the South China Sea.

In terms of cultural immersion, Poulter and his colleagues enjoy not the authentic experience but an ersatz equivalent. The same, alas, is true of the tournament they have travelled so far to contest. The World Cup ought to mean everything that its name implies: a league of nations with the kudos to rank it, just like in football and rugby, at the summit of the sport.  

Instead, its line-up is diminished and its very future imperilled by golf’s overstuffed calendar. Only in Europe are the two-man teams composed with any seriousness, as Poulter and Justin Rose line up for England and the seemingly irresistible duo of McIlroy and Graeme McDowell for Ireland. Elsewhere, the edges are fraying. Australia are forced by their congested tour programme to jettison Adam Scott and Jason Day, each of them ranked in the world’s top 10, for understudies Brendan Jones and Richard Green. The United States, once represented by Tiger Woods, are so constrained by Thanksgiving that they have to make do with Matt Kuchar and Gary Woodland.
It is a pity a World Cup cannot have greater gravitas. Granted, golfing thesps from Hugh Grant to Catherine Zeta-Jones turned up last year to mark its transfer to this tropical retreat off the Chinese mainland, but members of the cast list that matters are increasingly staying away.

Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson would rather be tucking into their turkeys back in the US, while the Australian PGA have had the foresight to host their championship in the same week. When every tour is so dominated by stroke-play competition, there appears to be no date mutually agreeable to all.

The irony is that the World Cup format should be growing, not dwindling in significance as golf prepares to join the Olympics in 2016. Although a £1.1 million cheque is on offer to the winning team, players can derive a foretaste of the Rio Games from the mingling of personal achievement with national pride.
Patriotism is a prime motivation for Poulter, not a man afraid to emblazon the St George cross on his slacks. “Let’s bring it home for England” is his mantra for the week.
In the words of McDowell: “There’s nothing quite like that team atmosphere in golf. It’s a very individual sport and we have very few opportunities to play like this.”
A certain hypocrisy is at work in that statement, in light of how he and McIlroy chose to swerve September’s Seve Trophy – when they could both have turned out for Great Britain and Ireland against Continental Europe – because it did not dovetail with their diaries.
At least, through their patronage in China, they are doing their best to rehabilitate an event in intensive care. They recognise, even in their lavishly appointed Mission Hills sanctuary, that it is time for a reality check.
A World Cup is healthy for golf, if only to dilute the game’s essentially egocentric nature. This is a showpiece that should start resembling its great sporting namesakes, rather than being reduced to a redundant afterthought.