Changi Golf Club was created by the RAF Changi and ready to play in 1949. Changi Golf Club is a reminder of Singapore’s historical connection with WWII, as the course winds through an area filled with mementos of the British presence like the soldier’s barracks, officer’s quarters, gun-emplacements and air-raid bunkers. When the RAF left Singapore in 1971, the club was privatized and civilian members were taken in to form the pioneer group of Changi Golf Club. Since then the golf course and the clubhouse have been regularly upgraded.
Wandering over undulating terrain, Changi is a tight and challenging 9-hole course. There were three distinctive features in Changi in the early formative years:
- The 8th fairway was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the narrowest fairway in the world, but has since been widened.
- The 6th hole was without a fairway and golfers have to ‘borrow’ the 5th fairway to play their second shot up the hill slope to reach the green.
- There were snakes everywhere, especially the cobras.
The clubhouse facilities include a Chinese restaurant, golfers’ lounge, golfers’ terrace, function room, card room, jackpot room and karaoke room. The clubhouse overlooks the Changi beach which offers a panoramic view of the sea and Pulau Ubin. Changi Golf Club is one of the few remaining places in modern Singapore that still retains an idyllic environment.