Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: The historic Royal Selangor Golf Club (RSGC) will make a welcome return to the spotlight next week when it stages the inaugural US$3 million Maybank Championship Malaysia.
Established in 1893, the RSGC is the oldest surviving golf club in the country and the fourth eldest in Asia. It is the founding ground of golf in Malaysia.
Situated in the middle of the city of Kuala Lumpur, amid a background of towering skyscrapers, it boasts two landscaped parkland courses – the historic Old Course and the challenging New Course.
In 2004, Nelson & Haworth Golf Course Architects (N&H) was engaged to completely remodel both courses.
“The goal of this exercise was to improve the quality, condition and playing strategies of both courses, while respecting the traditional nature of the courses and their largely flat, tree-lined character,” said Brett Mogg, a partner at N&H, an Associate Business Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.
The remodeled courses (2008) have a very traditional feel about them, with old-style push-up greens and hand-worked, grass-faced bunkers. Additional length was gained during this exercise with the composite tournament course now topping out at 7,052 yards.
Malaysian number one Danny Chia is looking forward to the event which is co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and European Tour.
“I’m very excited because it is a new event for Maybank and I’m really looking forward to playing at Royal Selangor. I’ve not played many times in a competition at Royal Selangor but I always trained there during my amateur days. I always liked that golf course,” said Chia.
“I played at Royal Selangor last month and the course is in good shape. It is a very interesting course,” he added.
Wong Lee Ming, Captain of RSGC, said: “The Royal Selangor Golf Club is honoured to host Maybank’s premier event in 2016 as it is aligned to our heritage of hosting top championship golf events at our club.
“The challenging course, with several elevated greens, has recently undergone extensive renovations and provides a tropical parkland setting with perhaps distracting views of the Petronas Twin Towers, which add to the demands of accurate golf shot execution.”