History of the Royal Perak Golf Club
by Dato ' Dr Sarjeet Singh Sidhu
In its not - too - brief history the Royal Perak Golf Club ( RPGC ) has gone through several phases and events which have shaped it into its current form; a remarkable transformation from its humble beginnings to what it is now : the undisputed premier Club in Perak.
The RPGC, once a Members' Club is now a Proprietary Club; and to distinguish between the two entities the former will hereinafter be referred to by its Bahasa Melayu acronym, KGDP, and the latter as RPGC.
Early History
[This is taken entirely from "The History of Royal Perak Golf Club" by Michael Lim, published in MALAYSIAN OPEN GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP MAGAZINE 1990, and we will let Mr. Michael Lim tell his story in his own words].
It all began with the Ipoh Golf Club which was first formed before the turn of the century . Its members played on a nine hole course on the race course.
( The original old wooden clubhouse built in 1900 )
By 1932, the membership has grown to such an extent that the nine hole course became inadequate, so 180 acres of secondary jungle, stretching from Tiger Lane to Gunung Rapat were acquired from the State Government for the construction of an 18 hole golf course.
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One story has it that the survey was carried out from the air by the Perak Flying Club, the photographs. sent back to Scotland, and the course laid our by a golf architect. How well the course was laid can be illustrated by the fact that experts subsequently found no room for improvement when measures were taken to alter the course.
Just prior to World War II, the old wooden club house which has been standing at the race course since 1900, was dismantled, moved over to its new Tiger Lane site and rebuilt with some additions and improvements.
The turbulent war years nearly spelt the end of the Tiger Lane course . During the Japanese Occupation, the whole course was put under cultivation , and the greens and fairways planted over with tapioca. Immediately after the war, the club house area was used as a hard standing for heavy transport belonging to Dutch troops bound for Indonesia .
In 1946, the rehabilitation problems facing the Ipoh Golf Club committee seemed insurmountable, but they were determined men. They sought and obtained the help of the Perak Turf Club (PTC) which, with the aid of expertise under the leadership of the then Secretary , Mr. Bunny Byers, and cash assistance of $ 100,000, transformed the situation. By 1947, the golf course was again in play and a new body called the Ipoh Sports Club was formed to run the course. Tennis courts were also constructed.
At this juncture, it is pertinent to chronicle a story of historical interest. In 1976, the Committee had a most pleasant surprise when informed that "a silver cup belonging to Ipoh Golf Club" engraved "1910" was found in the rubble of a small building in the village of Long Phuoc in Phuoc Tuy, Vietnam by a US Army Colonel in 1966. Unable to find out where Ipoh is, Col. Lewis H Goad took this monthly medal prized trophy to America, and then to New Delhi, and only after 9 long years was he finally informed that Ipoh is in Malaysia.
When this bit of news was published in the Straits Times, the curator of Muzium Negara contacted the Committee and indicated in his letter that the museum was very short of contributions for its sporting trophy collections, and requested that the "Vietnam" trophy be donated in view of its interesting historical background. After displaying this trophy at the club house for several months, it was finally sent to its permanent home in the National Museum where it now reposes.
