China Planning "Major Crackdown" On Illegal Course Construction

Trent Baker reports for the Scotsman:

Construction of new courses has been so rapid, widespread and unregulated that Beijing officials can only estimate how many have been built. One guess, appearing in the China Daily newspaper yesterday, put the number at 2,700 by 2015 – up from none before 1984 and more than 500 today.

"We still don't know the exact figure, but we're working on it and will have the information by 2010," the head of land planning at the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, Dong Zuoji, was quoted as saying. "The culprits will face harsh punishment."

Oh boy...just what we need, golf architects jailed in China.

Alarmed at the loss of arable land in this crowded nation of 1.3billion people, China began restricting golf course construction in the earlier part of the decade, with Premier Wen Jiabao vowing in 2007 to enforce a total ban.