Tiger Beach Golf Links, located in a small town, which near a vocation beach far away from the noisy city in Shandong Province, Its landform, latitude and the climate are all similar to Scotland, so it is really a good place to build a Links, and I planed to build it to be a leisure golf course at the beginning. The two courses started early and both got a lot of supports from the locate governments during their investments promotions in the early days and both run smoothly.
Tiger Beach Golf Links is designed by myself, and what I wanted is simple and nature, while it is really a big challenge to make it perfect in a simple way, I love the pure links, the biggest reason is just that, there are not so much artificial works on it, a wild course shows a nature, carefree and joyous, but most of the new built courses in recent years had followed the same pattern without any special characteristic which made the player feel tedious.
In the course building progress, there was really lots of professional golf knowledge that a designer should acknowledge, like the fairway, not only its changeable shapes; you should also take the convenience of the grass cutter operation into consideration, not only the attractive appearance but also the water draining. You should try to drain the rain on the grand as much as it can and low the cost of the drainage shafts and the pipes.
Especially the high cost of the earthwork transportation during the course building, so you must plan well before you start. What I did during the building process of Tiger Beach are mainly the planning of the whole frame job, the fairways trends and shapes and try to get a balance, I think balance is a kind of feel, a kind of skill and it is the source of the beauty that it is a kind of instinct that each designer must have. As to the details of the construction, you should find the suitable master worker to finish.
The clients of Shanghai Silport are most of the multinational corporations, the senior supervisor and CEOs of the local enterprises, so Silport has become a best platform for them to hold commercial activities and make Silport to be their private communications place and do leisure¡¯s sports. And the Tiger beach Golf Links; most of the clients are links lovers from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other regions of China, and also the local players.
I always think golf is a kind of live sport that you can get friendships and exercises from it, and it is a sport that enjoys from the teenagers to the seniors both for males and females. But the sport becomes different when it was introduced into China from America, Japan, and Southeast Asia. For example, the fairways are over maintained in order to keep green in all four seasons, make everyone forget it should be different natural colors in different seasons, golf carts are serviced, which we could say this had lost the exercises aim of golf as a sport, over serviced had been required and the players do not level the bunker and let the caddie show the line on the green, they really lost the joy of the challenge on the greens. So I try to Shanghai Silport and Tiger Beach Golf Links both to be the ¡°walk course¡±, and encourage the players to enjoy the walk golf.
The goal of the club management is to offer the best facilities and the high quality service, from which our clients can get joys from the golf in our club, as to the highest level of the management, I think firstly, there must be a sense of service in each staff¡®s mind, and we should consider customer as our God, to build a culture and an atmosphere to management ourselves spontaneously.
To obscurer the aimed clients, the club should make a suitable position first, the courses in different types will take different clients¡¯ levels, the marketing strategy decided the price, the most important thing during the club running is the numbers¡¯ recruitment and the price. You cannot recruit the club members unceremoniously to make the club lost the quality and become a second-rate finally.
The marketing promotion depends on the Operations Supervisors of the club, the website and printed medias, it is a good way to promote through holding the professional competitions, but it should be on a stable cooperation for its high cost and slow benefit.
If a course can be called great, not only the best facilities and the high quality service that you have but also you should have contributions to the golf development and the most important thing is course should occupy an important place in the golf development history.
In the year 1997, Silport host the VOLVO China Open, the main reason was not only the brighten prospects of the open, what I hope is Silport can do some contributions to develop our own Chinese professional tournament and can be written into the annals of history of Chinese golf. I anticipated that with the development of Chinese economy, the VOLVO China Open will be one of the world biggest tournaments and can be on equal terms with the four Majors (The Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and the PGA championships) one day. The prize from the $350,000 at first as an Asia tour grown to be a European Tour with $3,000,000 now seems my prophecy comes to pass. In the year 1999, VOLVO China Open affected by the severe impact of the financial crisis, but I still spare no effort on the Open to keep the best conditions and quality with the VOLVO, which prized by the international golf society and gave great confidence to Mel Pyatt. Then VOLVO signed five year cooperation with CGA, and Silport became the host venue in the following 6 years. Silport also honored to be the best Venue of the Asia Tour in the second year and the year after. All Silport 7 years¡¯ efforts and contributions made Chinese golf attracted so much attention and recognition by the international golf world and Medias. It was just the 7 years¡¯ efforts and supports that Silport had won the honor of the ¡°Home venue of VOLVO China Open¡±. This tournament will make appearance with the name of VOLVO China Open and the Open with the title of China will show its tremendous aspect to the international golf world.
SARS disturbed the year of 2003, no one knew what would happen, but Silport, Mel Pyatt and Richtone proceed with confidence, we all hope VOLVO China Open cannot stop by any difficulty, and I decided to hang tough on the support to the Open to make sure the Open can go on. Under the strong cooperative effort, 2003 year VOLVO China Open succeeded and had grown to a new high level which surprised the people in and out.
Actually Richtone, the VOLVO and Silport had a common goal, which was to develop the VOLVO China Open bigger and better. We all do not spend too much time on the agreement after the first contract in which we talked about the rights and duties of each part. And we followed the agreement without any dispute. The contract signed once a year and I remembered there even no new contract from the 3rd year and Silport just followed the gentlemen¡¯ agreement to do the Open as well.
However the VOLVO had promised if the Open moved to other place, it will return Shanghai once after, and when it held in Shanghai, the venue must be Silport during that time. Well, they did not keep what they said finally. The main reason was that there were Changes in their top management during that time, Mel Pyatt left Richtone. I did not mind and showed my understanding for their difficulties. Also it is a happy thing for me that so many courses wants to host the Open means VOLVO China Open has been recognized and we all want to promote the Open bigger and better with great efforts together.
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