A few days ago Yao played a ton of golf at the 2012 Mission Hills World Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament held October 19-21st in Haikou, Hainan Island. Click here for a map of the location.

There were tons of photos taken of Yao at the tournament. The day before the tournament started, Yao met Michael Phelps at the practice range.

Yao also got some golf tips from China’s #1 golfer, Zhang Lianwei.

Yao also got some special treatment by getting a golf cart with the top removed since Yao is too tall to fit underneath the roof of a conventional cart. Below Yao’s wife Ye Li is driving the cart.

The next day, the tournament started and Yao met actor Ryan Reynolds.

Yao continued to play a couple of more days of golf at the tournament. Here are a couple of photos of Yao in action on the second and third day of the tournament, respectively.

Click here for more photos of Yao in action on the golf course.

American pro golfer Matt Kuchar and actor Andy Garcia won the pro-am team competition.

Thanks go to Raymond in the forum for posting these photos. More details from Raymond about Yao at the tournament start here.

On Sunday, Yao attended an NBA exhibition game in Shanghai between the Clippers and Heat. Yao greeted some of the players, like LeBron James…

…Shane Battier…

…and NBA legend Bill Russell…

At halftime, Yao was surprised with a gift from graffiti artist David Garibaldi, who painted an oil painting of Yao in the arena during the game. Garibaldi placed fourth in the “America’s Got Talent” show.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the game.

Finally, at the beginning of the 4th quarter when both teams started playing their backups, the full capacity crowd of 18,000 chanted in unison Yao Ming’s name, pleading for him to come on to the court and play. In Yao’s typical understated style, he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled to the fans.

As you probably know, the NBA was in China last week and this weekend as the Clippers and Heat played an exhibition game in Beijing last Thursday, and played another game in Shanghai on Sunday.

Before Sunday’s game in a press conference with NBA commissioner David Stern and Yao Ming, Stern announced the NBA will be supporting Yao’s bi-annual Foundation charity game in China starting the summer of 2013. [Note: this story has been updated to reflect a bi-annual game, not an annual one as previously reported].

This is great news since a game wasn’t played this summer because of the conflict with the Olympic games in London, and Yao’s career-ending injuries and retirement impacted plans for a game in 2011.

The NBA also announced they have agreed to help players and coaches in the Chinese Basketball Association for the next 3 years.

This past summer, the NBA announced it will work in China with the Yao Ming Foundation on a broad and comprehensive partnership to further basketball participation, develop youth basketball, promote cultural exchange and conduct social responsibility programs in China. In addition, Yao will collaborate with the league to launch basketball and social development programs for Chinese youth through NBA Cares and the Yao Foundation for communities in need.

If you’re interested, here’s the video of the press conference where Stern and Yao talk about the benefits of the NBA working with Yao and basketball in China. Here are more photos from the press conference.