New York

AS Nick Dou bent down to inspect the 14th green at his revered Pine Lakes Country Club, with its antebellum-style clubhouse and magnolia trees, a question hangs in the humid South Carolina air: Can Chinese investors save American golf?

Pine Lakes, built in 1927, is the oldest course on the Grand Strand, a verdant coastal strip that includes Myrtle Beach and stretches 60 miles (96.5 km) along the Atlantic Ocean. Like most golf meccas, the Grand Strand is struggling to recover from the boom and bust that has cut the value of most of its courses in half. Owners were buried in a debt trap with no way out until Yiqian Funding, a Chinese peer-to-peer lender, swooped in and paid cash for 22 courses from September till April.