No lease renewal for six golf courses, including at Tanah Merah Country Club, Singapore Island Country Club
Four sites will be released for other uses, and two will be combined for a public golf course
[SINGAPORE] Singapore’s golf scene will change dramatically within a decade as the leases of six out of 16 golf courses will not be renewed.
These leases, including courses at two of Singapore’s most prestigious golf clubs Tanah Merah Country Club (TMCC) and Singapore Island Country Club (SICC), will expire by 2035 “as there are future plans for the land in question”, said the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) in a statement on Monday (Jul 7).
Apart from TMCC’s Garden course near Changi and SICC’s Bukit course in Sime Road, three other private clubs will be giving up land: Keppel Club (Sime), Warren Golf & Country Club in Choa Chu Kang and Orchid Country Club in Yishun.
The tenancy for Mandai Executive Golf Course – Singapore’s one remaining public golf course, which was previously extended for two years – will also expire without further extension on Dec 31, 2026.
Altogether, the six golf courses span 338 hectares and account for a third of all land now occupied by golf courses.
The changes are part of the government’s long-term approach towards land use planning, MinLaw said. “This includes ensuring sufficient land to meet critical national needs, such as housing, economic activities, security and essential infrastructure. Land use plans are continuously reviewed taking into consideration our evolving needs and priorities.”
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It added: “The government will balance the access to golfing facilities by private golf club members and the general public so that there can be golf courses catering to different segments of the golfing community.”
Singapore’s top golf clubs have long been the preserve of the wealthy, with memberships trading for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to information from club membership specialist Lee Lee Langdale, last done transacted prices for Singapore’s oldest golf club SICC range from S$350,000 for a local individual to S$600,000 for a foreign corporate membership, with transfer fees from S$50,000 to S$155,555.
TMCC membership last traded at S$210,000 for local individual, going up to S$275,000 for foreign corporate membership, with transfer fees ranging from S$40,000 to S$80,000.
At Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore’s priciest club, a local individual membership was last done at S$495,000, while a foreign corporate membership went for S$1.1 million. Transfer fees range from S$80,000 to S$320,000.
The Warren Golf & Country Club and Orchid Country Club sites have already been earmarked for housing in the Draft Master Plan 2025 (DMP2025). Their leases expire in 2030.
These rezonings add to land released with the 2022 move of Keppel Club from its original Telok Blangah address to its current Sime Road site, and the closure of Marina Bay Golf Course in 2024.
Land occupied by Keppel Club (Sime) and SICC (Bukit), which are side by side, will now be turned into an 18-hole public golf course following their lease expiry on Dec 31, 2030. Currently, only private clubs have 18-hole golf courses.
A part of the combined courses could be run by the labour movement for its members – a potential replacement for Orchid Country Club, which is owned by the National Trades Union Congress Club.
“This aim is to provide continued access to public golfing facilities for the general public and labour movement members,” said MinLaw.
In the north, Mandai Executive Golf Course will be redeveloped into an outdoor education site under the Ministry of Education, once its lease expires on Dec 31, 2026. The centre could allow students to participate in water activities and accommodate larger-scale camps by uniformed groups, the ministry previously announced in February 2024.
As for TMCC’s Garden Course, MinLaw said the future use of the land is still under study. “Given its proximity to Changi Airport, the land is being studied for uses that have synergies with the airport to support economic growth.”
Singapore has 16 golf courses as at July 2025, including the public course in Mandai and one hybrid public-private course (Keppel).
For now, only two – the 62-ha National Service Resort & Country Club in Kranji and the 59-ha Sentosa Golf Club (Serapong) – will have their leases renewed and extended for another 10 years to Dec 31, 2040.
Of the 16 golf courses, the lease of one will expire in 2026, six in 2030, one in 2035 and seven in 2040. Plans for the clubs after 2040 are “under review”, according to planning specifications.
Another golf course, Sembawang Country Club, has a licence agreement with the Ministry of Defence.
At the National Service Resort & Country Club, a centre of excellence will be set up in partnership with the Singapore Golf Association (SGA). This will be the second such centre on the island to develop young golfers.
Slots will be reserved weekly for the SGA to facilitate national and youth team training. It will complement the association’s existing weekly trainings in other clubs, said MinLaw.
With the closure of the six golf courses by 2035, as well as the opening of the new public golf course, this will leave Singapore with 12 golf courses in the coming years.
Knight Frank research head Leonard Tay reckoned that with the amount of development in various growth areas in the new DMP2025, the government could be looking at low yielding land uses, such as golf courses, and taking it back when the lease expires to maintain a certain volume of reserve land. This is also in line with the government’s latest DMP2025, which sought to better optimise and intensify land use, among other things. For instance, the rezoning of Orchid Country Club to housing in the master plan could yield more than 10,000 private and public homes, Huttons Asia senior director of data analytics Lee Sze Teck said.
“As we continue to chart out long-term plans to build a brighter future for Singapore, we must also remain agile and continually regine our land use plans to deal with challenges,” said Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat at the blueprint’s launch in late June.
A more uncertain global economy means “business activities and supply chains could undergo further shifts”, he said. Singapore also needs to prepare for the effects of climate change, and changes in demand for housing. “Along the way, there will be difficult tradeoffs we need to discuss and find ways to strike a careful balance,” Chee added.
The last update in 2014 saw the lease renewal of seven golf clubs. They are Changi Golf Club, National Service Resort & Country Club (Changi), Orchid Country Club, Seletar Country Club, Sentosa Golf Club, SICC and TMCC.
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