Chinese university to require golf class

BEIJING — A Chinese university aiming to produce "socially elite" graduates is making golf compulsory for students.

Golf was once reviled in Communist China as a symbol of Western decadence, but it has become hugely popular among the newly affluent since the first golf course opened on the mainland in the early 1980s.

Students majoring in management, law, economics and software engineering at Xiamen University in China's southeastern Fujian province will be required to take a course in golf "to achieve their elite ambitions," the China Daily newspaper said.

Elite Peking University set off a debate over whether golf is appropriate for China, where most people still live in poverty, when it announced in August that it was building a practice green.

Some students complained that the sport was too elitist, but supporters defended it as a healthful social activity.

"Golf is not only good exercise but will teach students communication skills and benefit their future careers," the paper quoted the university's president Zhu Chongshi as saying. "The highest embodiment of the education system is producing socially elite people with the best education."

"The aim is to help the students find good jobs," a sports professor at the school, Chen Xiao, was quoted as saying. "Many Chinese business deals are clinched on golf courses."

The university has drawn some fire, the paper said.

"To try to make golf compulsory is rather vulgar," Alex Jin, president of the Center for International Education Group, was quoted as saying.

He added that some regions in China needed investment in better primary health care.