Caddie's Role: We came to Beijing 10 days ago to play the Buddah Cup. It was a two-day exhibition skins game where Retief Goosen and Michael Campbell took on China's best players Lan Wei Zhang and Liang Wen Chong.

The course owners in Beijing are queuing up to host events like this. All courses in Beijing are relatively new and an event like this with TV coverage puts them on the golfing map of China.

In golfing terms it should have been a mis-match . Two local, and relative minnows, against the bigger fish of world golf with three US Open titles between them. So when Zhang and Chong gave the foreigners a fair beating in the skins game it was an historic day for Chinese golf.

I know that it was not a "real" event, but players of this calibre do not like getting beaten. Zhang on the second day would have beaten his opposition single-handedly. He was nine under par for 14 holes with five birdies and two eagles . He chipped in three times on the front nine alone. In fact there is only one short-game genius in the world that springs to mind when looking at Zhang's wedge play and that is Phil Mickelson.

With a wedge in his hand, you start to expect him to hole out or leave his shots gimmie distance.

We were paired with him again last week in the VW Masters, also played in Beijing, and he hit two wedge shots from about 90 yards to a foot and six inches. He is not a fluke, he is China's finest golfer and he can compete with the best of them .

After last week's skins game there was a formal dinner and then the Chinese players took us all out for a Saturday night on the town Beijing style. Because we were staying on for last week's event we were in the rare position of being able to enjoy a few free days in the cultural capital of China.

Last Tuesday, Zhang invited us to the China Club in the heart of the capital, an exclusive private club in old Beijing where only VIP's gain entrance. Michael Campbell's caddie and myself were wondering how we were included on this small list of special guests, but were not going to miss out on an opportunity to experience the high life of Beijing.

The dinner was held in the esteemed Deng room of the China club where the former leader of the Communist Party Deng Xioa Peng used to entertain foreign dignitaries. Our host for the evening was Madam Deng, the former boss's daughter. These trips are as much about the formal functions after a day on the golf course as they are about the actual golf.

It was our fourth function of the week where the evenings comprised of endless courses of Chinese cuisine, toned down for the esteemed Western guests, even still there was plenty of dishes that kept going around on the lazy susan due to traditional foreigner's timidity about what the outcome of eating a murky looking shark-fin soup may be the next day on the course. The fine food was washed down with plenty of the finest of drink. The Chinese like to charge their glasses. They tend to toast almost everyone, personally in the room. So by the end of the evening the chances are you will have drunk too much unless you are monitoring your sips wisely .

Madam Deng made a speech through her interpreter, Peggy, who I am sure was adding her own bit to what the seemingly concise Madam Deng was saying. The thrust of her thoughts were that Zhang has always had a close connection with her father. Her father was responsible for the gradual opening up of the formerly closed China. It was the region that Zhang grew up in Shenzhen, not far from Hong Kong, that was designated as the first development region of modern China.

Naturally the first golf course in China was built in this area. That was in 1984 and it is called Chung Shan Hot Springs Country Club. At that time Zhang was a champion javelin thrower. Although he was talented at many sports, like so many good golfers, it was by chance and then sheer determination that he became China's first serious contender outside the country.

It was naturally not an easy passage and still is not almost 20 years later. He has to travel regularly from his home in Shenzhen to Beijing to get visas to travel. He borrowed $30,000 (€23,000) in his early years so that he could go and play on the Australian tour. He ran out of money and had to come home broke. He reckons he is one of the most, if not the most travelled golfer in the world. Given the lack of competition in his country at any level, he had no option. He still plays 40 weeks of the year, at a time when most pros baulk at playing 25 weeks a year.

Zhang was discovered by the general manager of the Zhuhai Golf Club, about an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong. As an athlete he was given the chance to go to that new Japanese club built in 1984. So with his own expertise in javelin throwing and the encouragement of the general manager, Zhang taught himself how to play golf. You can see by his enthusiastic follow-through that he has got his own unique style of swinging.

The Chinese government gave support to other aspiring golfers so they could compete at the Asian Games in the early 1990s.

Zhang did it his way and ended up finishing second individually in the 1994 Asian Games and turned pro immediately after this. He has won five times in Asia, including beating Ernie Els to take the Singapore Open in 2003, he also won the China Open in the same year.

Lan Wei Zhang is a testament to the willpower and determination that is required to succeed in professional golf. He did it without much help from the government at a time when he must have seemed like a maverick citizen playing this capitalist game. His win, with his partner Chong in the Buddah Cup, and his third place finish in the VW Masters last week, are just some more hurdles that he has jumped in his pioneering adventure in this new Chinese sport.

As we charged our glasses to Mr Zhang, China's greatest golfer, in the stately surroundings of the Deng room in the China Club last week, where the guest book is signed by world leaders and other luminaries, it seemed like this man has broken all barriers to get to this position of respect in his country. How myself and Sponge, Michael Campbell's caddie ended up there I'll never know.