Golf: The Cambodian Open

Cambodia on Monday announced the country’s first major international golf tournament, which gave newly appointed Minister of Tourism — and old-school communist party goombah — Thong Khon his first real chance to show the world that old-school commies know nothing about tourism.

Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon, present at Monday’s ceremony in Siem Reap announcing the tournament, said it would boost tourism.

“When we have a golf tournament like this, we can show the world and all the tourists that we have something new for them at the Angkor Wat site,” he said. “Before, if golfers wanted to visit Angkor Wat, they were hesitant to come, but now they are happy to come to see the temples because they can see the temples and can play golf too.”

So for all those years Cambodia’s nascent tourism industry struggled not because of tourists’ concerns for safety — or crap roads, corrupt officials, crime, war, land mines, Khmer Rouge bandits or a litany of other woes — but because without a golf tournament to sex it up, well, who wants to see a pile of old rocks anyway?