Challenge: Golf for Comrades

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Some years ago the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez made headlines by denouncing golf as a "bourgeois sport." (He was justifying the nationalization of golf courses to be used for low-income housing and other purposes. [1]) Some Venezuelan critics of Chavez "point[ed] out that Venezuela's top ally, Cuba, is going in the opposite direction. Canadian and European investors are seeking to build as many as 10 new courses in Cuba as part of the Cuban government's bid to raise tourist revenues." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/world/americas/12venez.html But of course for Raul Castro to build golf courses *for foreign tourists* does not signify that he disagrees with Chavez on the bourgeois nature of golf; quite the contrary.

Fidel Castro, to be sure, played a famous (photographed by Albert Korda) round of golf with Che Guevara (who had caddied in Argentina) but it seems to have been done mainly to mock President Eisenhower's fondness for golf.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/news-blog-quiz-revolutionary-golf-edition/

So that doesn't count, and neither for example does Khrushchev's plan to build a golf course for Eisenhower's projected visit to the USSR (a visit which never happened, thanks to the U2 affair and the breakup of the four- power Paris Summit) or the occasional discussions in the USSR of building a golf course for foreign diplomats, or even the golf course that they finally built late in the Gorbachev era. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/world/in-the-mud-on-imported-sod-golf-is-introduced-to-moscow.html

Nor do I count the recent boom in golf in China: "But challenges are nothing new to golf in China. It's an activity loaded with political implications; there's a reason why the sport, which earned the nickname 'green opium,' was nowhere to be found during the first 35 years of the Communist regime. Golf, the belief goes, is an aristocratic, individualistic, even capitalistic pursuit, linked to corruption in the minds of many. And in today's China, although it is slowly becoming more accessible, golf indeed remains a rich man's game. With virtually no public courses to choose from, 18 holes in China will cost around $60 on average, and that's a pretty big chunk of the monthly income for a typicalChinese farmer, a demographic that makes up close to half of the nation's population." http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3118871 Even today, golf is viewed with some disfavor by the government and is the subject of occasional crackdowns: http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/18536868/china-cracks-golf-closes-111-courses

What these have in common is that they in effect accept Chavez's view of golf as a bourgeois sport--and promote golf precisely as a concession to the foreign and domestic bourgeoisie, and a way to get revenue from them. Call it "NEP golf."

What I have in mind is something different: a Communist government--and a really hard-core one, not a "liberalizing" one or even a "market Stalinist" one--promoting golf precisely as a proletarian sport, encouraging "workers and peasants" to play it. "Yes, maybe in capitalist countries it's a rich man's sport, [2] but not here!" etc.

(Are there, incidentally, any Marxist golf writers? One of the best books about cricket--at least by reputation, I haven't read it--is Beyond a Boundary by the heterodox Trotskyist C. L. R. James. Lester Rodney of the Daily Worker touted Jackie Robinson's abilities for years before Robinson was signed for a minor league contract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Rodney But have any Marxists of any ideological tendency written about golf?)

Thoughts?

[1] Perhaps George Catlin influenced the Comandante here: http://georgedpcarlin.blogspot.com/2012/03/george-carlin-on-golf.html

[2] Which of course is not really true. "Here in the US, at least, golf is widely played by members of the working class. When I lived in St. Louis, almost every local building trades union sponsored a golf tournament for its members." http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/10/12/chavez-versus-golf/
The Chicago Tribune observed "We're not sure where Chavez got the idea that you have to be a millionaire to get the shanks. The parking lots at Chicago's and Cook County's public courses are packed with proletariat duffers. (It used to be that if you knew someone on the County Board you could clout a prime tee time -- even play for free -- but that's another story.)" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...ourses-venezuelan-president-hugo-chavez-sport
 
I think this is actually pretty easy. Someone in the Kremlin decides that there is propaganda value in having Soviet golfers beat Western golfers at the ultimate capitalist sport "in order to prove the superiority of the Marxist-Leninist system". As a consequence, courses are built for the public to encourage interest and to identify talent. Similar efforts take place in the Warsaw Pact and Cuba, with talented Soviet and European golfers being sent to Cuba during the winter for training and development. This would not be unlike the programs set up for Olympic sports (and the Communist bloc makes a push for reinstating golf as an Olympic sport).
 
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