Royal Colombo

Royal Colombo Golf Club was founded in 1879, achieving its royal title from King George V in 1928. The club moved to its present location in 1896 when Sir Joseph West Ridgeway, governor of the Crown Colony of Ceylon, gifted a sufficient acreage of farmland for the use of the members.

The course has changed much over the years. The grounds were used by the military during World War II so a great deal of effort was required to allow play to resume when hostilities ceased with Dick Greenway, club professional from 1920 to 1968, borrowing a bulldozer to assist with the endeavours.

Martin Ebert, when he was working with Donald Steel at the time, carried out an 18-month renovation project at the start of the new millennium when he rebuilt bunkers and re-layed greens with Bermuda grass. The old-fashioned routing remains the same as before, involving crossover holes, shared fairways and a railway line as a hazard.

Neil Haworth later produced a report for the club in which he recommended installing a modern irrigation system, reshaping the existing water hazards, removing unwanted trees, constructing greens to USGA standard and replacing fairway turf and putting surfaces with paspalum grass.

In 2015, the greens were re-grassed with Bermuda Tifeagle from Thailand and all the work was carried out in-house. Three years later, Paul Jensen produced a master plan which resulted in the rebuilding of all the tee complexes and the introduction of two new holes next to the existing 14th. This now allows more playing options and assists future renovation work if a hole or two can be taken out for a period of time.