Writing
In February 2010, Shanghai-based photographer Ryan Pyle and I teamed up for a Foreign Policy photo essay on the development of golf in Hainan, China.
I began 2010 with a Financial Times Weekend Magazine cover story ( “Golf’s secret boom in Hainan, China” ) which examines a highly secretive and controversial golf construction project that, when completed, will be the largest collection of courses in the world — nearly 1.5 times the size of Manhattan.
I wrote the November 9, 2009 cover story for Condé Nast’s Golf World magazine, “Last Call,” which profiled China’s pioneering pro golfers, whose window of opportunity for competitive success might be closing.
In November 2009, I filed five stories for ESPN.com from the HSBC Champions golf tournament in Shanghai, which ended in a final day showdown between the world’s top two golfers, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. You can find introductions and links to all five stories here.
GOOD magazine published my story about golf and the environment, “Greener Pastures,” in November 2009.
In 2009, I wrote about a youth movement in Chinese competitive golf for Omega Lifetime magazine (Chinese edition) and I profiled four of China’s rising young golf stars for Dragonair’s Silkroad magazine.
My work was featured in the 2008 book Inside The Ropes: Sportswriters Get Their Game On, an anthology of the best of participatory sports journalism, edited by Zachary Michael Jack and published by the University of Nebraska Press. The book highlighted a Sporting Life column I wrote about my humbling experience training for and paddling in a dragon boat race. Other contributors to the book included George Plimpton, Tom Verducci, Jack McCallum, Paul Gallico and Tim Cahill. Read more about Inside The Ropes here.
In November 2007, I wrote a series of stories about golf in China for ESPN.com: an introduction to the China Tour, a profile of peasant farmer turned security guard turned professional golfer Zhou Xunshu (the main character in my upcoming book Par for China), an interview with Chinese golf trailblazer Zhang Lianwei, and some brief sketches of the other colorful characters on China’s fledgling pro golf tour. My previous work for ESPN.com included a look at Tiger Woods’ fame (or lack thereof) in China, and a realistic examination of golf’s prospects for growth in the country.
Budget Travel asked me to write a guide to Shanghai and it ended up being called “My Shanghai Is Better Than Yours.” That’s debatable. I also acted as a China “Trip Coach” for the magazine.
For Business China, a publication of The Economist, I have written about DVD piracy, China’s fake goods economy, eBay’s Chinese classifieds website and the tepid state of China’s golf business.
For the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, I wrote about the search for baseball’s Yao Ming, I profiled former England soccer manager Howard Wilkinson and globetrotting pro basketball player Alex Scales, I examined China’s tobacco addiction, I revealed Shanghai’s “raze and raise” attitude toward historic architecture, and I discussed advertising strategies for foreign brands in China. I also did some golf coverage for the SCMP, writing about Ian Poulter, Tiger Woods, Zhang Lianwei, Hu Mu and golf etiquette with Chinese characteristics.
Outside magazine approached me to write a story about Shanghai for the debut issue of a new publication entitled GO, targeted at affluent men who enjoy something called “adventurous, stylish travel.” The result was part abbreviated Shanghai history, part profile of a local art dealer and part Shanghai travel guide. You can read the full story here or the edited down version here.
I wrote about Major League Baseball’s investment in China for Baseball America.
In 2004, I embarked on a four-month trip through 18 Chinese provinces, staying with local families at many stops along the way. I wrote quite a bit from the road, and the trip attracted a lot of attention, but unfortunately technical difficulties forced me to stop posting longer accounts about midway through the trip (I still have dozens of note pads begging to be turned into stories). You can find an archive of all my trip tales here. Some of my favorite stories include “Haoyi Village: ‘There were more blue skies 10 years ago’”, “Fireworks factories, coal mines and cute little puppies” and “Shenyang: The truth flows with the wine”.
From 1998 to 2002, while a sports writer for The Times in Gainesville, Georgia, I wrote the award-winning Plimptonian “Sporting Life” column, a weekly foray into particpatory journalism. I rode bulls (or, at least, tried to), I climbed walls of ice in the Deep South, I jumped out of an airplane, and I “handgrabbed” for giant catfish in a muddy, water-moccasin-infested river in Mississippi. An archive of nearly 200 of my “Sporting Life” columns can be found here.
Each week of the 2001 NFL season, I wrote a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a professional football player — Todd McClure, starting center for the Atlanta Falcons. The result was “On The Line with Todd McClure,” published every Sunday by The Times in Gainesville, Georgia. A complete archive of my “On The Line” columns can be found here.