Introduction
As the venue for the historic Hong Kong Open, the oldest professional sporting event in Hong Kong and the second oldest professional golfing title in Asia, championship golf is at the very heart of the Club’s fabric. The Hong Kong Open was first played on the Old Course in 1959 but for the last three decades it has been played over a composite course consisting of holes from the New and Eden Courses. Some of the greatest names in the game have graced Fanling’s fairways and the event has been won on 14 occasions by major championship winners including Peter Thomson, Greg Norman, Tom Watson and, in more recent years, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose.
Augusta National Golf Club and the Hong Kong Golf Club are the only two Clubs in the world to have hosted the same professional event for more than 60 consecutive years.
Additionally, the Club hosted the inaugural Johnnie Walker Classic in 1990, which was won by Nick Faldo.
In 2015, the Club inaugurated the Hong Kong Ladies Open, the first world-class ladies professional open tournament to have ever been staged in Hong Kong. Featuring a prize purse of US150,000 in addition to important Rolex Women’s World Ranking points, the tournament, which is played over the Old Course, is sanctioned by the China Ladies PGA, the Ladies PGA of Taiwan and the Ladies Asian Golf Tour.
The event, which was founded to help provide the opportunity for Hong Kong’s talented young amateurs to compete against seasoned professionals from around the region, has gone from strength to strength. In 2016, the event was won by Club member Tiffany Chan who went on to represent Hong Kong at the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro later that summer and has since earned her LPGA Tour card.
In 2019, the Old Course played host to US Women’s Open Regional Qualifying for the very first time, with the two leading players securing their berths at the Country Club of Charleston for the 74th edition of women’s golf’s oldest major championship.
In 2024, the Hong Kong Golf Club hosted another celebrated organization, LIV Golf. The LIV Golf League visited Hong Kong for the first time, featuring 54 players (13 teams of four players each and two wild cards). This made Hong Kong the 20th different global market to host a LIV Golf League or promotions tournament and represented yet another exciting new chapter in the rich golfing history of the Hong Kong Golf Club.
Hong Kong Golf Club is currently part of the 2024 Asian Tour schedule as one of the 10 International Series tournaments, but this isn’t the first time LIV Golf players have played the course. A dozen current LIV Golf League members played in the most recent Hong Kong Open in 2023, including Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith, who finished runner-up to current LIV Golf reserve player Ben Campbell.
