He left his comfortable life in Madrid as a golf teacher and started pedaling towards an uncertain and very, very distant destination. He crossed nine countries and traveled for almost five months with his bicycle more than 12,000 kilometers, in what turned out to be an enriching experience, not without adversities. He arrived in the vast China and decided to start his new life there. In 2011 he set up the company DBGolf in Beijing. Most of the still few Chinese golfers who come to Spain come from his hand.
The life odyssey of David Barrionuevo, as this globetrotting golfer is called, began almost six years ago.
“I arrived from Madrid with my bicycle, with Milana, which is how it is called, in honor of the movie Los Santos Inocentes,” he recalls. “I traveled nine countries and 1,514 kilometers, in an unforgettable trip that changed me forever,” he adds.
He arrived in China in 2008, a few weeks before the Olympic Games. He says that “each and every day” that he has lived in the world’s most populous country “has given me a pleasant surprise, a life full of stimuli, incentives, headaches and above all rewards”.
Although he was in an unknown land, far away and with an unknown language for him, David did not let the difficulties discourage him. “I started with nothing, looking for a living, as a Spanish teacher, as a golf referee, until I found my niche in a golf school,” he says. “To do this,” he continues, “I had more than ten years’ experience as a teacher in Madrid”.
His first classes in Beijing were in an Australian school, “not speaking English and not knowing a word of Chinese.”
“I introduced myself,” he recalls, “talked to them and found my own students in all the companies, restaurants, associations and others where there might be Spanish speakers. In addition, in 2009 I started a new adventure, working for a European golf travel agency.
The two companies decided to “move on”, in David’s words, “and I decided to set up DBGOLF in June 2011 from within the Chinese golf industry, seeing its strength and already knowing English and Chinese”.
His company, he says, “is a company that loves golf in all its aspects, organizes trips for Chinese players in Spain, trips for European players in China, organizes promotional tournaments in China for companies that want to make themselves known in Asian markets or seek to relate their image to the world of golf, we organize clinics, events and a golf school”.
DBGolf is based in Beijing, in a coquettish office located in a golf course, “and from there we are looking for expansion to other places in search of Asian, Indian, Australian players…. The company does not stop growing, demanding more and more time”.
Last November DBGolf organized for the Chinese magazine Golf Magazine a familiarization trip to Madrid, where the Asian envoys enjoyed some of the best courses in the autonomous community (Lomas Bosque, La Herreria, Real Sociedad Hípica, Santander, Moraleja and Aranjuez), as well as visiting emblematic places such as the Monastery of El Escorial, Toledo, the Madrid of the Austrias, museums, etc. It was a daring action by DBGolf, prepared with a lot of care and effort together with the company MIP of Madrid, “and without any help from the public”, says David.
It was a work of promotion of golf in Spain in general and in Madrid in particular that allowed to make this destination known to the millions of golfers who practice this sport in China, since upon returning from the trip a report was published in one of the most prestigious Chinese magazines. “I intend to raise awareness of Madrid golf and be a link between China and Spain through quality tourism,” says the owner of DBGolf.
David confesses that he is fortunate to develop his professional work together with one of his passions, golf. His other passion, of course, is his bicycle, Milana.
“With her I arrived in Beijing after five months of travel and 12,514 kilometers to see the Olympic Games; then came Japan, Vietnam, countless routes through the north of China…”.
In 2011 he traveled from Beijing to the remote Qinhai capital of Xining. It was seven weeks of travel and nearly 3,000 kilometers of adventure through the most remote areas of Tibet. “Above 4,000 meters,” he explains, “the point of view changes about everything. Tibetan hospitality is a pleasure in this world.”
Last February David crossed the Taklamakan Desert from Xining to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
“And from these long journeys I have learned to help the traveler,” he says. “At my home in Beijing I receive long-distance travelers who pedal around the world. Each traveler speaks a language, each one has a story, each one leaves a mark on me, they all make me a better person, want to help and give me the possibility to be able to do so,” he says.
GREEN OPIUM
David confesses to having an addiction, albeit not harmful to his health: “In China I am addicted to green opium. This is what the Chinese call golf, a sport in constant growth: in Beijing alone there are 70 golf courses, which will be increased by the great passion of the Chinese for golf. When golf was declared an Olympic sport (2009) it began to be practiced in schools, and that means that soon we will have generations of golfers. At present China does not have players at the top of the world ranking, but it is a matter of time. It is an individual sport, which requires sacrifice, mental power, self-improvement…, characteristics of the sports where the Chinese triumph”.
However, golf in the Asian country has not always been so well regarded. “It went through a dark period, it was a punished and persecuted sport during the hardest years of the Cultural Revolution, an aristocratic sport,” says David. Today that bad image has disappeared and a young industry around the world of golf is developing at an incredible speed.
The restless mind of this entrepreneur from Madrid never stops making plans. “Golf tournaments, clinics, events, the preparation of my next cycling trip in September to the Pamir (Central Asia), Chinese classes and enjoying playing golf don’t leave me much free time,” he explains.
“As Gregorio Marañon said, to rest is to begin to die!” he concludes.
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