Public EyeThe real cost of Hong Kong Golf Club's precious land

There's this clownish argument that even though the Hong Kong Golf Club pays the government just HK$1 a year for the 170 hectares that host the three Fanling courses, members must pay through their noses to join. So what? Are the rich guys looking for sympathy? Let's get one thing straight: Public Eye doesn't give a stuff how much the rich guys pay to join so they can swing their sticks and ride around in golf carts. The fact remains that the club pays just HK$1 a year for prime land that belongs to all the people. The rich guys defending the Fanling courses also moan that they have to wait years to join. Go tell that to the struggling families in slum cubicles who wait years to get into public housing. The hundreds of thousands of dollars the membership commands go into the pocket of the club. Only one stingy dollar a year of that goes to the people. The fortune the club has amassed is spent on making the swanky club even swankier for the rich guys. They don't even have the decency to use some of it to pay for the annual Hong Kong Open, which they say is so prestigious that the Fanling courses should not be turned into land for public housing. If the tournament is so important, why don't the rich guys pay for it themselves? Why make ordinary Hongkongers fork out millions for a tournament that only a minority of rich folks care about?

Don't believe us when we say the Open is only a snob sporting event for the wealthy few? Just compare what happened when Manchester United came to town for Monday's exhibition match with when Rory McIlroy came for the Open last year. United players were mobbed by Hong Kong fans, mostly ordinary people. And was there a mob of ordinary Hongkongers awaiting McIlroy, who reportedly received HK$6 million from the public purse for playing here? Mob, no. A bunch of snooty guys who like riding around in golf carts, maybe.