Jake's View | Those village golfers really know how to play the game
There must be some dynamite golfers among these villagers by now. Do the arithmetic. It works out to 17.5 rounds a year per villager and, assuming that only a third of them are really disposed to golf, we would have 266 of them on the course every week.
Some 800 indigenous villagers enjoy free access because of a deal their ancestors struck when they sold the land to the [golf] club's owners decades ago. Last year those villagers played almost 14,000 rounds of golf on the courses, the club said.
There must be some dynamite golfers among these villagers by now. Do the arithmetic. It works out to 17.5 rounds a year per villager and, assuming that only a third of them are really disposed to golf, we would have 266 of them on the course every week.
Then again, all of them may be golfers and this is how their names wound up on the list when the cut was made seven years ago, although it would indicate a curiously high proportion of golf enthusiasts for an average New Territories population.
Might there be an even higher proportion of not quite local Heung Yee Kuk heavyweights among them? Purely by chance, of course. Just asking.
Nonetheless, I must now recant any sympathy I had for redevelopment of one of the three Fanling courses into housing for the needy of the New Territories.