{"id":203,"date":"2007-11-22T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2007-11-22T07:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parforchina.com\/blog\/?p=203"},"modified":"2016-05-16T11:58:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T15:58:16","slug":"zhou-makes-remarkable-leap-into-professional-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/zhou-makes-remarkable-leap-into-professional-golf\/","title":{"rendered":"Zhou makes remarkable leap into professional golf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"washburnzhouespn112207.jpg\"That’s the headline of my story<\/a> for ESPN.com about Omega China Tour<\/a> golfer Zhou Xunshu, who I have had the pleasure of spending a considerable amount of time with over the past seven months or so. Here’s the first few paragraphs:<\/p>\n

In 1984, when China ushered in its first modern-day golf course, Zhou Xunshu was 12 years old, living in an impoverished mountain village in the country’s midsection. At his school, light came from kerosene lamps, heat from a coal furnace in the middle of the classroom. At home, Zhou worked in the fields, cutting tall grass with a sickle. He didn’t know a sport called golf existed.<\/p>\n

In 1994, when China first acknowledged “golf pro” as a profession, Zhou enrolled in a military-operated police school, trying to find direction in his life. He had spent the previous four years studying to pass the senior high school entrance exam — his parents had hoped he would be the first family member to do so — but schooling was never Zhou’s strong suit. Four years in a row he went through the motions, and four years in a row he failed. Now 22, Zhou had still never heard the word “golf.”<\/p>\n

A year later, Zhou made a move that would alter the course of his life in the most unexpected way. He left police school early and hopped on a train to Guangzhou after hearing there were jobs to be had in the southern boomtown. Zhou landed a gig as a security guard \u2026 at something called a “golf course.” Things would never be the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the the rest at ESPN.com<\/a>. Also, Zhou got married in Chongqing earlier this month. Bliss and I were there \u2014 I was asked to give a toast (in Chinese) \u2014 pics and video coming soon.<\/p>\n

I also wrote a series of shorter profiles of eight more guys from the China Tour whose paths to pro golf were similarly wild and random. That story is also up on ESPN.com. Here’s a link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of these stories are related to my work-in-progress book project, Par for China<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<\/p>\n

Golf in China on ESPN.com<\/strong>
\nFrom 2007<\/em>
\nZhou makes remarkable leap into professional golf<\/a>
\nHow they got to the China Tour<\/a>
\nGolf in China: All growing, all new, all raw<\/a>
\nFrom 2005<\/em>
\nGolf still an elitist pursuit in China<\/a>
\nGolf in China grows bigger by the day<\/a>
\nChinese events bring interesting questions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the headline of my story for ESPN.com about Omega China Tour golfer Zhou Xunshu, who I have had the pleasure of spending a considerable amount of time with over the past seven months or so. Here’s the first few paragraphs: In 1984, when China … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,18,5,12,7,19,9,20],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-china","tag-chinatour","tag-danwashburn","tag-espncom","tag-golf","tag-parforchina","tag-stories","tag-zhouxunshu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}