The St Andrews Links Trust has struck a partnership to license a golf academy in China. Golf Business News reports that the project on Simapo Island, Hainan, is the first foreign golf academy for St Andrews, the famous Scottish golf complex. The partnership is with White Horse Holdings, the company behind Golf Channel China, which has already built an 18-hole course on Simapo Island – an island on the Nanpu river in Haikou, a city on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. The St Andrews-branded academy is meant to take advantage of the Scottish site's reputation to help develop golf in China. Hundreds of golf courses have opened in China in the last decades and the game has been boosted in the country by the rise of young local players. However, participation and the number of rounds played remain very low as a percentage of the population.

Topics