Singapore Island (Bukit)

Singapore Island Country Club originated in 1891 as The Golf Club and its first members played over a 9-hole course at the local horseracing track. The club moved to Bukit Timah in the early 1920s and a new 18-hole layout (today’s Bukit) was ready for play four years later. The authors of James Braid and his Four Hundred Golf Courses take up the rather unusual story:

“Braid was asked to design a layout of eighteen holes, which he did by using topographical maps. These disappeared during World War II, along with club records, as a result of the Japanese invasion. It was only recently that Braid had been attributed with the course, which was ploughed up during the war and the clubhouse was destroyed. A new course has now opened, attempting to recreate some of the Braid characteristics…

Is the Bukit a Braid course? We know maps had a great fascination for him and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that at the very height of course designing in the early 1920s he could have taken on what seems an extraordinary task. Stranger things have happened.”

By 1938, the Sime course had been added and the club was renamed the Royal Singapore Golf Club.

Merging in 1963 with the Island Golf Club, the amalgamated “superclub” adopted its present name and within five years, they opened the New course at the Island site. Today, members are truly spoiled by having four 18-hole layouts on which to play – the Bukit, Sime, Island and New.

Course architect Frank Pennink is credited with upgrading the Bukit course at the end of the 1960s.

A beautiful parkland course laid out beside the MacRitchie Reservoir, the Bukit has held many Singapore Opens (starting in 1962) but perhaps its finest moment was when it hosted the World Cup back in 1969 – Orville Moody and Lee Trevino won the team event for USA, with six-time major winner “SuperMex” claiming the individual trophy.