Hong Kong and Singapore are always compared, and the debate as to which of these former British colonies – the Barren Rock or the Little Red Dot – holds the upper hand has been debated for decades. We compete for a great deal – tourist dollars, stockmarket listings, the right to host the regional headquarters of international corporations – so it's easy to understand why this rivalry has come about.
Regardless of whatever topic is considered when sizing up the two cities – food, climate, nightlife, public transport, cost of living – there is, I'm afraid to admit, at least one thing that Singapore does better than us: golf.
Despite serious demands on space (like Hong Kong, you are never far from the groundbreaking of another real estate development in Singapore) there are 30 courses in the Lion City, which is three times as many as we have in Hong Kong. Layouts range from tracks such as the Serapong Course at Sentosa Golf Club – well known to global television audiences as the host of the annual Singapore Open – to less vaunted, yet still worthy, courses such as Marina Bay and the Palm at Raffles Country Club.
Unsurprisingly there’s a good deal of variety to be found among all these beauties. While some, like the Bukit course at Singapore Island and the Garden Course at Tanah Merah, offer supremely challenging golf in wonderfully bucolic tropical parkland surrounds, others are more open in style and offer a blend of undulating links-style mounding and American target golf.
If there’s a drawback to golf in Singapore it is its pricing (green fees of around S$200 – approximately HK$1,250 – are the norm for a midweek round and tariffs break the S$300-400 mark at weekends) and a slightly buttoned up atmosphere. Dress codes are strict – collars are de rigueur – while many clubs have restrictions on non-member play. Nevertheless it is well worth negotiating these obstacles to experience a golfing destination that lives up to the sobriquet of ‘small but perfectly formed'.
