The Hong Kong Golf Club is a private golf club. It is home to the Hong Kong Open, a tournament co-sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours. Founded in 1889 as the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club, the Club originally played in Happy Valley, a location shared with many other activities. As the Club expanded, the need for a more permanent home was addressed with the building of a small 9-hole course at Deep Water Bay, before the Club eventually moved to its current location in Fanling, most of which is leased from the Hong Kong government. According to the Club annals, the Deep Water Bay location opened in 1898; and the 18-hole Old Course was completed in 1911. To expand the facility, in 1968, the Club negotiated the lease of around 30 acres of land at Beas River with which it expanded the Eden Course into a full 18-hole championship course. The 'Royal' was dropped from the name of the club in 1996, in advance of the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China. The Club paid a one-off premium to lease the land, and is wrongly labelled to pay only a peppercorn rent annually. In 2012, the Club paid HK$1.9 million for rent and HK$3.2 million for rates. In Year 2013–2014, the Government Rent Payable is HK$2,538,000. History 1889–1910 On 8 May 1889, a notice was published on the Hong Kong Daily Press: Then, the "Royal Hong Kong Golf Club" was started in 1889 by "thirteen golfing enthusiasts" in a shared location in Happy Valley. According to "History of the Royal Hongkong Golf Club", which was written by T.F.R. Waters, of these thirteen, with the exception of Robert Murray Rumsey R.N. (then Hong Kong Harbour Master and the Rumsey Street was named after his name.) and Gershom Stewart (afterwards Knighted and a member of parliament for Hoylake) very few had much notion of the game but readily agreed to do what they could to established a foothold for it in the Colony. Although Captain Rumsey and Stewart had clubs and balls and had in fact been driving these balls within the race track at Happy Valley before 1889, the opinion of the Meeting was that attempts should be made to acquire land then in possession of the military in Kowloon. Rumsey had been elected captain of the new club