AFP - Tiger Woods' coach Hank Haney said he wanted to be part of the booming growth of golf in China but could not promise to produce another player to match the world number one.

Both Woods and world number two Phil Mickelson have predicted China will become a golfing powerhouse within 10 to 15 years and Haney, at Mission Hills for the World Cup of Golf, said he was looking at how he could help.

"The game is going to grow so fast in China. It's something I very much would like to be a part of, helping the game grow," he said.

"The main purpose of my visit is to assess the market but also assess what I think it would take to help develop a programme and a team of coaches that can help develop" future players in China, Haney added.

The coach, who said he had spent 100 days a year for the past six years with Woods, said the key factors in producing better players in China were to get more people playing the game and to develop the coaching structure.

Haney said the inclusion of golf as an Olympic sport from 2016 would be a further shot in the arm for the game in China, where the number of players is soaring year by year.

"When you look at how well the Chinese have done in so many different sports, there's no reason to believe golf won't be the next sport" to produce a great champion, he added.

Haney said the strength of the world game was growing, though he cautioned: "I don't know if there will ever be another Tiger Woods."

Mickelson said earlier this month he was opening a golf academy in China as part of his plans to help develop the sport in the country.

China only opened its first course -- the Chung Shan Hot Springs Golf Club some 80 kilometres (50 miles) across the Pearl River Estuary from Hong Kong -- in 1984.

Twenty-five years later and, by some estimates, it now has around 500 courses and the world's top players see huge growth to come.

China's best-known player is the pioneering Zhang Lianwei, the first Chinese to win a European PGA Tour event. Liang Wenchong is the current number one.