SAVE Seletar Base Golf Course
Posted by golfamateur on April 19, 2007
That is the request of some 3,000 golfers who frequent the nine-hole public course.
They have signed a petition, asking the authorities to reconsider the closure of the par-35, 2,570-metre course.
Said the club’s greens committee member Damian Chan: ‘A petition book is being circulated among the members and friends to save the course. It has at least 3,000 signatures.’
The golf club’s lease will cease at the end of June, and it will reportedly not be renewed.
The club is set to make way for the Seletar Aerospace Park, which will open in several phases and will be completed in eight years.
That will be an important centre for aerospace activities, like the maintenance, repair and overhaul of engines and other aircraft parts.
The club’s officials have asked the Singapore Sports Council for an alternative location.
Said Robert Tan, general manager of the Seletar Country Club, which operates a nine-hole public course and a members-only facility there: ‘I’m sure the SSC will consider the request favourably.
‘It’s easy to justify based on the number of people using the course – about 5,000 a month – and the rapid growth of new golfers picking up the sport here.’
If the course goes, golfers without country-club memberships would be the worst hit.
Said Australian teaching pro Brian Galvin, who has been based there for four years: ‘It would inhibit the growth of the game here, and make more Singaporeans head to Johor Baru or Batam to play.
‘Let’s not forget that Transview – another public course – was closed last year, and the new Marina Bay public course is packed on weekends.’
Seletar Base was originally built as a golf club for the British Royal Air Force in 1930.
When it withdrew in 1971, the club was handed over to the National Sports Promotion Board and renamed Seletar Country Club – a members’ club.
In 1995, when Seletar Country Club moved to its present premises next to the Lower Seletar Reservoir, it became a public course.
Meanwhile, the nine-hole Army Course at the National Service Resort and Country Club in Changi will reopen on Monday after renovations.
Source :
Paper: Straits Times, The (Singapore)
Date: April 19, 2007
