‘We’re not in Neillsville anymore’
State pro finds happiness in China
eillsville native Mike Schield was a
young PGA teaching pro in tony
Until, he said, he found “a one-in-a-mil-
lion opportunity, and I took it.”
Actually, it was one in more than a
billion, that being roughly the population
of China where his golden opportunity
awaited. But take it he did, and two years
later he is still there, teaching at the Cindy
Reid Golf Academy at Mission Hills GC,
which sounds straight out of San Diego or
Phoenix but is instead in Shenzhen, China,
a country that not so long ago was largely
closed to the western world – and cer-
tainly to golf.
No wonder Schield sometimes thinks,
“Toto, we’re not in Neillsville anymore.”
Or, as he put it by e-mail, “I grew up in
Neillsville, a town with the population of
roughly 3,000 people. I now live in the city
of Shenzhen, that has an estimated popu-
N
lation of 12 to 17 million at any given
point. As you can imagine, my life has
changed drastically.”
And largely for the better. If golf
remains in the doldrums here, it’s going
gangbusters in China. The Cindy Reid
Academy – think the Ledbetter Academy
with egg rolls – is packed with young
golfers from China and other countries as
well who “eat, sleep and breathe golf all
day, every day, in hopes of becoming pro-
fessional golfers,” Schield said. The 12 –
yes, 12 – courses at Mission Hills are
packed every day, he said, and a sister
facility, Mission Hills Haikou, has another
10 courses.
Still, and this might make U.S. course
owners with empty tee sheets cry, “There
are only roughly 500 golf courses in China,
catering to a population of over a billion
people,” Schield said. “There are around
20,000 courses in America, catering to a
population of over 300 million.” Given
supply and demand, the game is only
accessible to wealthy Chinese now but
“the opportunities in this country are
unlike any place else in the world today.”
Language has not been a significant
problem, in part because so many Chinese
already speak English and a team of trans-
lators trained in the language of golf work
with the students and their teachers. One
“There is a high lack of general
knowledge of the game of
golf, and more so than any
place in the world players are
looking to eat up all of the
knowledge instructors have.”
— MIKE SCHIELD
cultural difference is how some parents
support their kids, he said, to the point of
taking kids under the age of 13 out of
public or private schools to attend the
academy full time. In response, the academy
has begun fitness training and general
education programs at the school so the
students won’t be so one-dimensional as
to not be able to attend college later.
At least the teachers have their students’
attention. “There is a high lack of general
knowledge of the game of golf,” he said,
“and more so than any place in the world
players are looking to eat up all of the
knowledge instructors have.”
Schield was planning a return to
Wisconsin in July for the Neillsville
Invitational, which he called one of the
best member-guest events in the state,
but then return to China, where he is
learning the language, ordering instant
noodles instead of eggs for breakfast
and believes the real boom in golf is yet
to come.
