The messy situation is troubling golfers, too, because driven by a sense of insecurity and hot market demand, golf facilities are jacking up their fees.

I used to hit a bucket of 100 balls for about 40 yuan ($6.5) at a neighborhood driving range as part of my once-a-week, hassle-free workout regime. There are a couple of low-end, pay-and-play golf courses in Beijing's suburbs for people like me who are not club members but still want to head out to the course once in a while.

But my neighborhood driving range has been closed for renovation since early this year. When it reopens after several more weeks, we were told, most bays would be equipped with private rooms where club members could take a shower, watch TV or enjoy a round of mahjong with friends. And my favorite course has recently stopped issuing prepaid discount cards to visitors. It is working on converting them into members who have to pay an upfront fee of 150,000 yuan or more.

It is probably futile to teach "illegal" operators how to make their services accessible to more people to get higher returns in the future. Perhaps the current uproar on golf courses in the mountains of Zhangjiajie could be the beginning of the end for the chaos in the golf industry.

The writer is editor-at-large of China Daily. E-mail: dr.baiping@gmail.com

(China Daily 07/06/2013 page5)