Hong Kong Golf in the 1960s - Part One

A good start. The club got under way, and a 9 holes course was ‘drafted out’ on the race-course—which was already accommodating polo, football and hockey. Somehow or other, golf got going. It was holeless (they had to aim at markers), and bunkerless, but it was nursed by fanatics who would probably have ‘managed’ if the only land available had been a volcano crater.
The first match was played in 1890 against the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Membership of the club was then 100 and the clubhouse was described as ‘a dark and cavernous place under the grandstand’. Nevertheless, there was pleasing decorum, and a minute was recorded by the Captain: ‘The matter of members’ dress has called for much adverse comment during the year . . . Your flannels either get yellow when they are washed, or when they are not they assume an even less desirable hue’.
The ladies had clamoured for their own pitch and by 1897 nine excellent holes were acquired at Deep Water Bay. In that year, Queen Victoria granted the Royal Charter, and the club was away. An excellent lunch was available, usually comprising ‘cold saddle of mutton, cold gooseberry pie, and Watson’s dry sherry—one dollar’. Good victuals for sixpence.
But the addicts wanted more. In those days, land was available at the right price, so an extended course was laid out in 1911 across the water at Fanling. Now, please note what a member was prepared to do for golf on a full length (though very rough) course. First, he crossed by boat to Kowloon, then he took a two-man rickshaw up a road of sorts for two or three miles as far as the Kowloon reservoir, then by foot to the police launch which crossed to a place called Taipo, from whence a smart pony ride took him to Fanling.
Those were the days.
The railway had started by 1916. The men golfed after their cricket on Saturday afternoons. They would dine and play poker until 2 a.m., arise at 7 a.m., play 18 holes, have a heavy steak breakfast, sleep until 4 p.m., play another round, dine and play poker until 1 a.m. sleep, breakfast, and back for duty on the 8.15 a.m. train.