• China's golf courses, like this one in Beijing, have long had a tenuous relationship with the government.

China's golf courses, like this one in Beijing, have long had a tenuous relationship with the government. (Photo : Reuters)

Since opening its doors in 1999, the CTS Tycoon Golf Club has provided Shenzhen’s golfers a place to tee off and practice their swings. And in a country where the legal status of many golf courses is as murky at best, CTS enjoys the fact that it is fully licensed and legal.

But now the club's fate is in peril; local officials now say it is too close to a drinking-water resource. It has been so for the past 16 years. Why CTS is only now deemed out of bounds shows the legal challenges posed by China's love-hate relationship with golf.

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Lately, President Xi Jinping's austerity campaign has sent the sport of golf into the rough, leading to more than 60 courses shuttering across China and several Communist Party members being investigated for hitting the course.

But despite being described by Chairman Mao Zedong as "too bourgeois" for the masses, golf has seen an irrepressible rise in China. In fact, most of the country's golf courses have been built after a 2004 law banning such construction, making them technically illegal.

"You can say it's illegal, but you almost need to put quote marks around illegal because more golf courses are getting built in China than anywhere else in the world," said Dan Washburn, author of "The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream."

CTS, however, is just one of a few courses built before the ban was put into place. Owned by a state-controlled enterprise, China Travel Service Holdings Hong Kong Ltd., the course rivals that of Mission Hills, its Shenzhen neighbor and the largest golf resort in the world. It is also where teenager Li Haotong won the final PGA Tour China Series tournament in 2014, capping that tour's first season.

And many of the club's more than 1,000 members, who pay around $1,400 in annual fees, cites its biggest draw that CTS is considered to be "legal."

"I considered joining Mission Hills, which has many more courses," said Anthony Ho, a media executive and longtime CTS member. "I chose CTS because I thought my investment was protected."

But Ho and the club's other members may have to look for another place to play, as the Shenzhen government ordered CTS along with other six golf courses in November to vacate their land and return it to its natural state. In February, a formal notice was issued citing the 2004 ban.

The ban, which was meant to protect arable land, is seen by observers as part of the local government's efforts to ensure the city's rapidly increasing population doesn't fall prey to a water shortage.

For its part, CTS is not arguing against city officials trying to preserve the environment and is in fact "embracing" the nearby 64-square-kilometer reservoir. But the club's owner, China Travel Service, is not taking the change of rules well.

In 2008, when CTS was renovating its courses, city authorities asked the company to give up some of the land so the government could expand the reservoir. China Travel Service agreed and received compensation for the land.

"We were nice at the beginning, which makes us have no choice now," said Xu Muhan, general manager of China Travel International Investment Hong Kong, the parent company of China Travel Service.

"Now they have new regulations saying there are new protection lines around the water source. But we haven't done anything wrong. We've been driven to a hopeless situation," furthered Xu.

Xu said that, based on the notice the club received in February, the club must vacate the land before the end of May. But as that deadline nears, CTS is trying to negotiate with the local government.

A spokesman from the Shenzhen Development and Reform Commission said the case "is being handled according to the rules" and that such matters are being handled on a national level.