Like many 14-year-old girls, Li Gengshan will next month celebrate Chinese new year with her family. But unlike most other teenagers, it will probably be the only time this year she goes home to see them.
This is because Li’s life now revolves entirely around playing golf. Just a few years after she first picked up a club, she is already a member of China’s junior girls’ team, living at the country’s new, state-of-the-art national golf training facility. The Nanshan International Training Center is a sprawling complex in the mountains of northern Shandong province, with sparkling crystal chandeliers in the clubhouse and a view overlooking identical red-roofed golf villas and industrial chimneys in the distance.
Taking a break between practice sessions, Li already looks like a professional golfer, dressed in bright blue golfing trousers and with her long ponytail pulled through the back of her cap. In three or four years’ time, she hopes to actually be one.