Facilities now target schools to nurture a local Tiger Woods
Where once it was tear gas canisters flying through the air to quell rioting Vietnamese refugees at the Whitehead Detention Centre at Ma On Shan, today it is golf balls.
There are few remnants of the camp, notorious for hunger strikes and rioting during its turbulent eight-year history. The centre, which once held 22,000 asylum seekers, was closed in 1998. And it gave birth to the Ma On Shan Golf Centre in 1999, and turned into the Whitehead Club this year.
Managing director Jeans Wong said nowadays the site was known for recreation, not rehabilitation.
'People come here for fun, to play golf or to have a barbeque,' he said. 'More and more people come to play golf. We average 1,500 people a day on weekends, and 500 on weekdays, which is double what it was when we opened in February,' said Wong.
While stratospheric club memberships and long waiting lists guarantee swanky clubs the exclusivity they have always enjoyed, driving ranges are whetting the appetites of the would-be Tiger Woods' and Annika Sorenstams.