Danny Young's recent trip to China for Challenge Tour events
Trip To China
So my travel started as usual driving through to Ferrytoll Park and Ride where I usually leave my car for trips away. Then get the 15/20 minute bus into the airport where I was flying to Doha then onto Hong Kong, then onto Sanya, or Hainan Island in China. I left my house around 1130am on the Saturday and arrived at my hotel Sunday evening at 9pm China time so 2pm UK time.
Each week we had transport from both the airport to the hotel, and then daily from the hotel to the golf course. The first week was only around 15 minutes per day on the bus however the second week with being in a larger city was around 35 minutes but depending on the traffic was sometimes closer to an hour.
Tournament weeks are much the same for me as I have my routines etc. Usually this will consist of playing 9 holes a couple of times and the rest of the time just practising and getting ready for the weekend. As it was very hot and humid there wasn’t a whole lot of practice post round etc for me in these events as I felt rest and recovery was going to be more important as my game was in good shape anyway.
Travel to the second week in Hangzhou happened on the Monday between events for us. We had a 45 minute trip to Sanya airport then we were flying to Hangzhou which was just under 3 hours away. The language barrier certainly caused a few problems for the majority of us golfers at check in. From arriving we then had about a 30 minute trip from the airport to the hotel in Hangzhou.
A little bit different prep for the second week and we had some pretty terrible weather come in on the Tuesday and Wednesday so definitely didn’t get as much work in as I normally would have but I feel like this was very much the same for everyone that week.
To finish the trip I played my round on Sunday and was done by around 1pm, grabbed some lunch and back to the hotel to get packed up and showered etc. My flight home wasn’t until 1am so was a bit of waiting around etc. We went out for dinner and then got transport to the airport around 930pm. For the trip home I had a 10 hour flight from Hangzhou back to Doha, then 7 and a half hours back to Edinburgh to arrive back around 1pm Monday afternoon. So by 3pm I was home and lying on the couch ready to sleep for the foreseeable. (23 hours travelling)
My overall thoughts were China is a pretty cool country, the two weeks very very different places with week one being on an island and very holiday vibes. Then the second week in Hangzhou was very much big city living. The language barrier was a constant problem but the Chinese have apps on their phone to speak into which translate everything for both us and them so it isn’t too bad. The hotels we stayed in were top class and we managed to eat in plenty of places that were fairly western so didn’t find the food too much of an issue either. The two golf courses were immaculate and the Chinese bizarrely love their golf as we had some decent crowds out both weeks. It’s probably not somewhere I’d rush back to, however I certainly wouldn’t be complaining too much if I had to play over there again in the future.