CBLOCKS ABOVE the reception at the Singapore Island Country Club shows the time in Augusta, Georgia, and St Andrews in Scotland, both places with wonderful golf courses. But time may be running out of golf for Singapore. The government is forcing some courses to close or close. The greens will give way to the cranes; concrete and steel irons.
Golf in the city-state has had powerful champions. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s prime minister, adored him. (Golf was his “main recreation and passion,” said his son, Lee Hsien Yang, in 2015.) Real and ancient game was once a symbol of aspiration for the middle class, says Harvey Neo, a geographer from the Lee Kuan Yew Center for innovative cities. In the 1990s and 2000s, Singaporeans were said to crave “5c”: cash, cars, condominiums, credit cards and country club membership.
However, in 2013 the government, which owns most of the land in Singapore, announced that it would gradually redistribute much of the space occupied by golf courses in housing and public infrastructure. The ruling party, impressed by its disappointing performance in the 2011 elections, felt the need to respond to critics who claimed it was out of common contact with singles Singapore and who claimed that it had overcrowded the small island by welcoming too many immigrants. At the time of its announcement, 2.1% of Singapore’s land was sold to greens and fairways. By 2030, the number of courses is expected to drop by about 40% from its peak in 2010. Closures are expected to leave Singapore with one course per 430,000 residents by 2040, down from one in every 250,000 three decades ago.
Many Singapore shrug. The grip of the game on the national imagination is weakening. The number of people who play regularly hasn’t changed much in years, thinks Jerome Ng, general manager of the Singapore Golf Association. About 55% of golf club members are 55 or older. “Young people now play other sports,” says Lee Lee Langdale, who manages country club memberships. He says young people are discouraged by the exorbitant cost. Some clubs charge hundreds of thousands of dollars just to join. Flashy clothes aren’t cheap either. The image of the game has suffered. A banker claims that he sometimes feels “self-conscious” by admitting that he is a golfer.
It will be possible to play golf in Singapore for years to come. But the government has yet to renew any club’s lease beyond 2040, which worries fans. “We will lose everything,” says Langdale. Others are optimistic. “The people we used to play with are dead or no longer play,” says Aidan Wong, who has been starting to knuckle since he was 12 years old. When his club closes in 2021, he says, “I’ll probably put my clubs away.”■
This article appeared in the Asia section of the paper edition under the title “From fairway to highway”
