Tianan set up like PGA Tour event for Omega Championship

The Omega China Tour's tournament director is claiming that this week's Omega Championship will be played under the toughest and best conditions the players have seen all season.

Charles Kuo Tsung-tai, who has been monitoring the preparation of the Tianan Golf Club course in Beijing for the past six months, says it has been prepared to a world-class standard.

"Everything has been done so well; the rough, the greens and the fairways. Of all the tournaments this year, this is the highest quality set-up we've had," said Kuo, who hails from Chinese Taipei.

"These are the conditions the Chinese players will meet on the Asian and European Tours and these are the conditions we want to help them become accustomed to playing in. It's a real challenge. The greens are firm and fast, but smooth. They're running at around 11 on the Stimp meter. The rough is over three inches long and the density is very good. This is very severe - the most severe rough we've ever had on the Omega China Tour. I don't know if all of the players have watched the US Open, when the best golfers in the world have to just chip out when they land in the rough. This time we've given them the US Open. I've been to The Players Championship at Sawgrass twice and this is exactly the same set-up as the TPC. The rough, the green speed, it's very, very similar."

Kuo's praise is remarkable given that the Tianan track in the capital's Chaoyuang District has only been operational for around 18 months. It's a tribute to the work of Cheng Jun, the General Manager of the Board at Tianan, who became the first Chinese player to win an international tournament when he lifted the Volvo China Open trophy in 1997.

"Charles Kuo is very nice to say those things. I've been to many tournament courses in Europe and America and I know what a course should be like. That's helped us to prepare the course to this standard," said the 37-year-old who Zhang Lianwei describes as 'the history of Chinese golf'.

"The course is new - it's only been open one-and-a-half years - and this is a way of checking how hard the course is for professionals and to see how the media will respond to it. The course is new, but with all the branding and the boards up, and with the course set up the way it is, it looks and feels like a real tournament course," Cheng added.

The early reaction from the players has been favourable too. Wu Weihuang who, at 38 years of age and with three top-10 finishes this year, can be described as one of the tour's senior players in both age and performance, was positively gushing in his praise.

"It's beautiful!" Wu declared. "The greens are so nice, lots of big ups and downs, and they're in great condition. The rough is very long, the fairways are narrow and the greens are hilly. It is just like a PGA Tour set-up."

However, Cheng, who has worked for the past three years to get the course he part-owns to the point where it is ready for its first professional tournament is generally too much the expectant father to fully enjoy the initial reaction to Tianan.

"It just feels like a big challenge. We've never done anything like this at this course. It's a test for us in every aspect, so we're feeling a little nervous. Will the players like it? Will our service be up to the standard we want? It's too early to feel proud or satisfied. Of course I want famous players like Zhang Lianwei, Liang Wenchong and Li Chao playing my course, but I'm nervous about how they will feel about it," he explained.

Having initially entered to play in the Omega Championship, Cheng reluctantly made the decision in the last few days to withdraw, realising that his work commitments wouldn't allow him to do his own tournament justice with his clubs.

"My heart was saying play, play, but most players can't play well in tournaments on their home course and I don't have time to practice and this week there are too many things for me to take care of. I wouldn't have been able to focus on the competition. But it was still a difficult decision," he said, before admitting that he is such a perfectionist that he would have been unbearable out there.

"I can't play my own course anyway," he laughed.

"I just see little things that are wrong; things that wouldn't bother me on someone else's course. After two holes I'm usually on the phone complaining. They're always scared when they see it's me calling them. Even if I had time this week, I still wouldn't have been able to fully concentrate on my golf."

October 24, 2006

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