High stakes for corporate game
Unless one is loaded and has extreme patience, or the company is willing to pay, getting membership of a club is hard
Hong Kong might be the third most expensive city in the world for luxury apartments - behind Monaco and London - but that is nothing compared with the price of a golf debenture in this town, with prices soaring despite the poor global economic outlook.
It will set you back HK$14.8 million to buy a corporate debenture at Hong Kong Golf Club, the home of one of Asia's oldest professional golf tournaments, where world No 1 Rory McIlroy made a lightning visit earlier this month - he missed the cut.
Spain with its manifold golf courses might be trying to boost its property market by offering foreigners residency if they buy luxury homes along its Mediterranean coastline, but in Hong Kong any corporate high-flier with a golf addiction would be forced to wait years to join as an individual member at the Fanling club.
"You can apply, but the waiting list at Hong Kong Golf Club for an individual membership is long. Some clients have been waiting for 20 years," says Vivian Wong, sales manager at China Dragon Membership Services, one of the many organisations which paves the way for an A-list clientele to become members at one of Hong Kong's four golf clubs.
Actually, make that three. To become a member at Shek O, where only individual memberships are available, you have to be invited by a member who has to propose your name to a committee dealing with such matters.
The other private clubs - Fanling, Clearwater Bay and Discovery Bay - have individual and corporate memberships, but unless you are loaded and have the patience of Job, or alternatively your company is willing to pay up, walking through the doorway is hard.
The sky is the limit in terms of cost. The price on the secondhand market - membership lists at all the local clubs are full - for an individual debenture at the 18-hole Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club is about HK$4.3 million and for a corporate buy-in about HK$5.5 million, This is up by more than HK$1 million in the past three years. In 2005, membership cost about HK$1.5 million.