| MARKET NEWS, APRIL 2007
The prices of memberships in most of Singapore’s golf clubs rose during 2006 and early 2007 together with the country’s GDP and rising values on the Stock Exchange and the property market. The price of a Local membership in Sentosa GC rose from $132,000 to $190,000 and for Tanah Merah CC from $110,000 to $138,000.
The price for Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) was quite steady with a small increase from $164,000 to $167,000. For the past few months, the Bukit location clubhouse of SICC has been undergoing major repairs to its roof following the discovery of termite damage. During this period the clubhouse has been largely closed to members and the F&B and offices have been moved to temporary accommodation adjacent to the clubhouse. This may explain why the market price of membership has not increased during the past few months, but of course this inconvenience will only be temporary.
Prices of lower priced clubs also increased during the same period, but by a smaller percentage. Referring again to Local memberships, Raffles CC rose from about $35,000 to $41,000 and Keppel Club from $22,000 to $26,500. As can be seen from the table below, the transfer fees at these clubs remain high relative to the membership value.
The table below sets out the relevant figures:
| Club |
Price % Change |
Price at May 2007 (P) |
Transfer Fee (TF) |
% of TF over P |
| SICC |
+ 2% |
$ 167,000 |
$ 30,000 |
18% |
| SENTOSA |
+ 44% |
$ 190,000 |
$ 30,000 |
16% |
| TMCC |
+ 25% |
$ 138,000 |
$ 30,000 |
22% |
| |
|
|
|
|
| RCC |
+ 17% |
$ 41,000 |
$ 20,000 |
49% |
| KEPPEL |
+ 20% |
$ 26,500 |
$ 12,000 |
45% |
| |
|
|
|
|
Some think that a high transfer fee helps to support the membership price by reducing the motivation to sell. However, the other side of this coin is that a high transfer fee means the buyer looses a big chunk of realisable value immediately after the purchase.
NEWS ABOUT THE CLUBS
The rebuilding of Tanah Merah’s championship course, the Garden, was completed in Q4 2006 to universal acclaim. In November it hosted its first professional event, the Lexus Cup, a Ryder Cup style match for ladies between a team of the best Asian players against the rest of the world. In a closely fought contest the Asian team won and the newly built Garden course was demonstrated to be a fine championship class test of golf.
Sentosa’s Serapong championship course has been the venue of several professional tournaments during the past two years and it will host the 2007 Barclays Singapore Open in November 2007. Following the renovation of the Tanjong course, in March 2007 it was the venue for the (British) Open Championship Asian qualifying tournament. Singapore professional Lam Chih Bing qualified to compete with the cream of the world’s golfers at Carnoustie, Scotland in July.
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