NEW YORK, N.Y. - Viking Cruises, a company known for offering river cruises, on Friday announced that it was launching a new cruise line for ocean-going trips. Viking's first ocean-going ship, Viking Star, will make its first voyages in 2015 to Scandinavia, the Baltic region and the Mediterranean. Viking has expanded rapidly in recent years, christening 10 new river ships in March of this year with 12 more new river ships planned to launch in 2014.

By Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama took his second-term "schmooze offensive" to the golf course on Monday, bonding in a bipartisan foursome as Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss hit a hole-in-one. Obama, an avid golfer with a respectable 17 handicap, rarely takes politics to the greens, preferring instead to golf with friends and staffers far out of the sight of the reporters who travel with him.

China's golf boom has been in full swing for more than a decade but officials have finally moved to close a surprising loophole by translating the sport's rules into Chinese. Now China's players and officials -- and its unruly fans -- can become experts in the sport's complex etiquette after the move by the China Golf Association (CGA) and rules body the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A). Zhang Xiaoning, executive vice-president and general secretary of the CGA, called the move "crucial" as China transitions from rapidly growing upstart to a mainstay of the world game.

China's 12-year-old Ye Wocheng will become the European Tour's youngest ever player when he tees off at the Volvo China Open on Thursday, smashing the record set by April's Masters sensation Guan Tianlang. The two go head-to-head a year after Guan played in his country's Open in Tianjin aged just 13 years and 177 days, and just three weeks after he finished with the Silver Cup at Augusta National as top-placed amateur.