China Bans Golf, But Buys Wentworth

The Chinese Government has banned golf in China, The Chinese Communist Party banned all 88 million of its members from joining golf clubs.

But then the Chinese, in the form of the Beijing-based Reignwood Group, buy up the iconic English course Wentworth Golf Club.

The first action of this group is to fleece the members by raising the cost of admission, existing members will have to pay a fee of £100,000. New members will be faced with a £125,000 charge, and On top of that, annual fees are doubling from £8,000 to a whopping £16,000.

Old Stalwart golfer and TV golfing commentator Peter Alliss, who is a honorary member of Wentworth, has seen this sort of thing all before, but not in England;

“It’s unheard of, in this country anyway.”

“And unheard of in the whole of Europe I would think, although years ago in the Far East and some clubs in the United States have had this sort of thing.”

“The idea, I’m told, is the club wants to have a very good relationship with those who have houses on the estate.”

“But a lot of them are from overseas, from Asia and Russia and other places.”

“It’s a jigsaw puzzle at the moment and I wonder how many pieces will fall into place.”

An unnamed member added;

“People were completely shocked.”

“It’s a cull and it saddens and angers me to see an iconic golf club treated in this way.”

I wonder what the new terms and conditions will be like for the employee’s, if its anything like China, they will be in for a shock.

Cover Photo via WentworthClub.com