The Star - Star Golf 12th August 2007

Reclaimed by the forest
The closure of Kristal does not come as a surprise, given the difficulties the club was going through.
EDITORIAL:BY WONG SAI WAN
HAPPENED to be travelling north two weeks ago when a colleague called and asked if I was a member of the Kristal Golf Resort.
When I inquired why he was asking, this non-golfer burst out in laugher and said the club had closed down and over 1,400 members left in a lurch and a further 150 employees out of a job.
In the words of another fellow golf journalist, the forest will soon reclaim another golf course.
What happened at Kristal did not surprise me because there had been many stories floating around about the difficulties the club was going through after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
Now it turns out that Kristal, which is located in Jawi, Penang, had collected more than RM50mil in membership fees, in addition to the monthly fees of RM115 for corporate members and RM88 per month for individual members.

Members of the golf resort at Sungai Bakap staging a peaceful demonstration after they were prevented from entering the premises.According to the members, the closure was unannounced and sudden. Two hundred of them then staged a protest outside the club, demanding an explanation from Suasa Kristal (M) Bhd.
Members claimed they were not given any notice of the closure and were shocked when they turned up to play golf two Mondays ago and learnt that the company had come under receivership.
On the main gate was a huge signboard that said CLOSED and a note asking them to contact managing director Ishihara Shotaro for further information.
Shotaro, who was also present outside the club to witness the protest last Friday, said he received his termination letter on Monday.
The club, which opened in 1993, has a large expatriate membership, including 300 Japanese members with others from Britain, the United States and Taiwan.
The workers have lodged a report to the labour department and word has it is that the members are trying to seek redress legally.
To be fair, Kristal was (past-tense is being used here because I doubt the course can be re-opened soon) not the only golf club to run into trouble after 1997.
According to industry sources, many owners of the clubs, constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, were just too ambitious in their development.
“While most were courses built as part of a mixed housing-commercial development project, there were others who relied too heavily on the course to bring in the money.
“The clubhouses that were built were just too luxurious. They were more akin to palaces than functional premises to house facilities for members,” said a former senior manager, who has served at several clubs.
The closure of Kristal is a huge blow to the golfing community in the north and to Penang’s tourist attraction efforts.
Three years ago, the five clubs in Penang - Penang Golf Resort, Bukit Jambul Country Club, Bukit Jawi Golf Resort, Pearl Island Country Club and Kristal Golf Resort - formed a consortium to turn the state into a preferred golfing destination in the region.
Called the Penang Golf Circuit 2004, it was to be a new tourism package to target Japanese and South Korean tourists.
But sadly, after 2004, the circuit did not make much headway and the Japnese and South Koreans prefer the courses and facilities in the Klang Valley.
Kristal is not the only club to close in the state. Pearl Island Country Club is also no more. It has been bought over by a well-known developer who is turning it into a housing project.
After hearing about Kristal, I purposely took a drive past the Pearl Island site and the fairways and greens are gone - all bulldozed with only brown earth left. At least this is one course that the forests won't reclaim.