I saw a Tiger!
Tiger Woods was in Shanghai for the HSBC Champions golf tournament this week. I went out to the course today to check out the action. Tiger was paired with Retief Goosen.
Tiger played fairly well after posting a great round of 64 on Friday. However, on Saturday his play was not very sharp and he ended up shooting an one-over 73.
Besides the golf, the location of this tournament was interesting to me. This being my first golf tournament in China, I wasn’t sure what level of course and facilities to expect. The course itself was just fine.
The homes around the course on the other hand were really poor. The Sheshan Golf Club is being promoted as a very exclusive golf development and I suppoes they have gotten a lot of people to put payments down on some of the homes. But when you look at them closely you see that absolutely no one is actually living there, the quality of workmanship is quite poor, and the homes and their environs are actually quite dirty.
I suppose some big bank has paid for all of this, a few homes have gone to local party officials and the rest…well, who knows who would actually buy a home here. It is about 40 min. outside Shanghai by car and there is absolutely nothing of note nearby except thousands of empty apartment buildings built, I guess, for a rich middle class that has yet to develop.
Actually, after doing a little searching on the web I see there is a Le Meridien Hotel nearby. Their page describes the area as, “Set in the heart of the National Tourist Resort of She Shan, Le Méridien She Shan Shanghai enjoys breathtaking panoramas of Yuehu Lake and majestic mountain ranges.”
All I can say is that I think they have a very good PR department.