Singapore to lose two golf courses in next 10 years
The Government of Singapore is continuing with plans to redevelop two of the city's golf courses.
With demand for land for development growing, and with leases expiring for nine of Singapore’s golf clubs in the next 10 years, two - Keppel Club and Marina Bay Golf Club - will not have their leases renewed.
Three others - Tanah Merah Country Club (TMCC) and National Service Resort and Country Club (NSRCC) and Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) - will have their leases extended but they will be giving up part of the land they now occupy.
The remaining four will have their leases extended with no change. However, of these four, Orchid Country Club’s lease will not be further renewed after 2030.
Singapore has 14 private golf courses and three public golf courses, taking up 1,500 hectares of land, or about 2% of the Republic’s total land area.
Last February, the Government had said that some of these golf courses will have to be phased out and the land be put to other uses.
Keppel Club, which has origins dating back to 1904, will not have its lease extended after it expires on 31st December 2021, with the land to be used for housing development. The club, which occupies some 44 hectares of land, will be offered an alternative site to operate as a social club if it so wishes.
Marina Bay Golf Club (pictured), described as ‘the best public golf course in Asia’, will also be redeveloped.
TMCC and NSRCC will have their leases extended, but will give up some of their land for Changi Airport’s expansion plans. The Government will acquire about 10 hectares of land from TMCC - comprising six holes from TMCC’s Garden golf course, three of its tennis courts and two of its storage sheds - to make way for new taxiways to be built at Changi Airport.
About 26 hectares of NSRCC’s land will be affected. Part of its Air Force course and part of its Executive nine-hole course will be affected by the airport expansion works and re-alignment of Changi Coast Road. Some parts of the leasehold land will also be affected by the Land Transport Authority’s road works and PUB’s drainage works.
The SICC’s courses at its Island location will have its lease extended, but one of its two Bukit location courses will be run as a public course by the labour movement when its lease expires in 2021. This is to ensure public access to golfing facilities when the Marina Bay Golf Course - a 68-hectare public course - is phased out for redevelopment.
The lease for the SICC’s other Bukit course will only be extended if it can work out with the labour movement how to reconfigure its courses and possibly share its facilities by February next year.
Explaining the moves, a Singapore Government spokesperson explained “golf and golf clubs are land intensive and there is a need to balance the competing demands for land.”
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