MALAYSIA'S oldest golf club lies in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, enjoying the city skyline as a backdrop for its scenic greens.

Established in 1893, The Royal Selangor Golf Club is located off busy Jalan Tun Razak and is only 10 minutes from the iconic Petronas Twin Towers.

The club's long, illustrious history began when several coffee planters thought it was a good idea to have a golf club in Kuala Lumpur.

A notice for a meeting was published in the Selangor Journal on Jan 13, 1893 and it held its first annual general meeting five months later, by which time the work of laying out the course had already started.

The golf course was completed soon after the meeting and was formally opened on Aug 21 the same year. Even back in 1893, golf was not new to the town.

There was already a five-hole course laid out in the town's public gardens - the Lake Gardens.

Today, The Royal Selangor Golf Club is a premier golf club in the country and one of the best in the region. It has over 6,000 members comprising Royalty, ministers, foreign diplomats, corporate leaders, captains of industry and professionals.

Neighbouring Selangor is home to two national record-holding golf clubs - the Kelab Golf Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah in Shah Alam and Tropicana Golf and Country Resort in Petaling Jaya.

The former is the first club in the country to offer night golfing while Tropicana has the country's largest golf club house, measuring 106,680 sq metres.