Before it became one of the most iconic sites of communist China, the location of today’s People’s Place in Shanghai was known for something very different. From 1862 onwards, the area was home to the legendary Shanghai Racecourse, the city's foremost horse-racing venue and the social heart of Shanghai's foreign community. A position it kept until the outbreak of the Second World War. It was also the home of the Shanghai Golf Club.
The Scotsman James Ferrier of Carnoustie was among the first to introduce golf to China. An amateur scratch golfer and known as the golf “Veteran,” Ferrier arrived in Shanghai in the late 1860s to work as a marine engineer at the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. In 1870 he and some Scottish friends built a couple of rudimentary holes in Hankow and in 1878 became a founding member of the Hankow Golf Club. He did the same in Shanghai: building a simple golf course in 1871 and helping to establish the Shanghai Golf Club in 1894.
After the Opium War Shanghai was largest Chinese port open to foreign trade. The town thus became the first point of entry for the British and other Westerners. Missionaries came to build schools and hospitals, merchants to trade and businesspeople to set up manufacturing facilities. As the number of expats living in Shanghai grew, golf as an outdoor sport developed. The Shanghai Golf Club was at the centre of this development.
Shanghai Golf Club and the 9-Hole Golf Links at the Racecourse
Prior to its formal incorporation, the Club had organized inter-club competitions with the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club. On September 11, 1891, the North-China Herald reports that members of the Hong Kong Cricket Association were on their way to Shanghai, and would like to arrange a golf competition with Shanghai. A follow-up story on the September 18 notes that Shanghai had yet to select two golfers for the competition but encouraged all golfers in Shanghai to practice and get ready.
At this time the golf links inside the Racecourse was a rough one. One reader wrote a letter in 1893 to the editor of the North-China Herald, suggesting the construction of a public park and a proper golf course. Published on June 2 issue, it reads:
“A public place is needed where any and everybody can go and play any game they like. Golf is played everywhere and by everybody, old and young, in the British Isles now. It is popular in India and in all the colonies. Even in the south of France now John Bull has introduced his golfing clubs and balls, but in Shanghai where half the community is Scotch there is nowhere for them to indulge in their splendid national pastime. Grazing is very much needed here too, and a park would help to provide that.”
Early Golf Course at the Shanghai Race Club
By the end of 1893, the golf course still only had 6 holes. On the evening of Wednesday, January 10, 1894, 18 golf enthusiasts met at the Shanghai Club presided by Brodie Augustus Clarke, chairman of the Shanghai Horse Bazaar. The meeting’s attendants, including James Ferrier, agreed to found a Golf Club. The North-China Herald wrote:
“Hopes were expressed that 6 greens inside the Racecourse would be obtained, no difficulty being anticipated with the Horse Bazaar or the Recreation Fund.”
An another article, Golf in China, from February 2, 1899, in The Dundee Courier had the subtitle “The Shanghai Course.” The piece had a sketch of the new pavilion club house built at the Racecourse. In the first paragraph, the author gave a detailed description of the 9-hole golf links inside the Race Course:
“Just exactly a mile from the busy Bund of Shanghai, traveling by the Maloo, or Nanking Road, there is an open space which the casual observer would at once remark, was a race course, and a race course it truly is; but within this open space there are many more sporting interests centred than that of testing the merits of the China pony. The racecourse is about a mile and a quarter round, and in the centre there are two cricket pitches, polo, football, hockey, lawn tennis, and baseball grounds, and, last but not least, our golf course. One could hardly express that all these sports could be carried on at the same time within such a limited space, but each has its own season, and there is little clashing. To those who have been accustomed in the open breezy links of most of the old home courses, it may appear that only a poor game of golf can be had within the circumference of a mile and a quarter, but such is not the case. Our course does not certainly boast its eighteen holes, but it has nine holes, which take a lot of doing in 45 strokes. The longest hole is 283 yards, and the shortest 163 yards. To three of the holes, the lofting iron has to be brought into requisition, as ditches have to be crossed, and at others steeple chase jumps have to be negotiated; so, taken all in all, we have hazards capable of drawing out the dry humour of the home caddie, had he the opportunity of witnessing many of the attempts made to get out of the bunkers by those who have had the misfortune to ‘top’ or ‘setoff’ in their endeavour to lie dead upon the green.”
On February 27, 1899, Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette published a news story about Shanghai, which reads:
“Golf in China is pursued in a very comfortable manner. The Country Club at Shanghai is composed chiefly of Englishmen and Scotsmen. The links are made on the race track course and infield, and are provided with artificial bunkers, water hazards, and sand ditches. The ground in Shanghai is level, and the course at the Chinese club is necessarily devoid of picturesque effects. The holes are well arranged, and spectators can view matches from the grandstand as well as from the clubhouse. The Chinese caddie is a bright fellow, who says ‘floo’ where the Prestwick article would shout ‘fore.’ High winds that sweep over Shanghai prevent the golfers from making low scores.”
Golf Course to the North of Racecourse
Early members of the Shanghai Golf Club, only had the 9-hole links inside the Racecourse. After the new Hongkew Recreation Ground to the north of the city was completed, another 9-hole golf course was built, which helped ease traffic at the original links, but only briefly.
A growing number of engineers living in the northern district, most of them from Scotland, met and decided to form a Junior Golf Club and use the Hongkew links as its home course. [Hongkew is now also defunct and was situated on the site of today’s Shanghai Zoo]. Both courses continued to be crowded. Shanghai urgently needed a 18-hole golf course.
Shanghai Racecourse in 1935
In the history of the Shanghai Golf Club, two dates stand out. One is the above mentioned inaugural meeting on January 10, 1894. The second is August 10, 1911, when the Club decided to lease part of the property of Kiangwan’s International Recreation Club, and to build an eighteen-hole golf course.
By the early 1930s, the 9-hole golf links at the Racecourse was turned over to the Race Club. It was turned into China’s only public golf course and was extremely crowded on the weekends.
Today the Shanghai Race Club building is all that remains of this rich sporting history. It still stands on the northern edge of People’s Square housing the Shanghai History Museum. No traces of the former golf course exist.
Racecourse 9-Hole Golf Links in the 1930s
The text is based on a book published by Wayne Xing and Christoph Meister titled Early Golf in China, 1870-1950: How Modern Golf Spread from Scotland to China published by Blacksmithbooks in Hong Kong [ISBN: 9789887674924]. In Europe copies are available for € 50 plus p&p from the author at cnmeister23@gmail.com