Going green before going on the greens

The Sentosa Golf Club is living up to its billing as "the world's best eco-friendly golf facility" with a host of green practices which top-ranked Ko Jin-young and four other golfers learnt about first-hand yesterday.

Ko, Olympic gold medallist and world No. 2 Inbee Park, 10th-ranked Minjee Lee, former world No.1 Lydia Ko and Major winner Georgia Hall took time out of their preparations for the HSBC Women's World Championship, which tees off today, to learn more about the club's sustainability initiatives.

The five golfers visited the club's bee sanctuary - which was built in light of the world's declining bee population - and witnessed how the club minimises pesticide use with every employee hand-picking at least 15 weeds a day.

With 75 golf agronomy employees, this equates to a minimum of 7,875 weeds each week.

Sentosa Golf Club, which was the first golf club in the world to join the UN Sports for Climate Action, was also the first club in Asia to use carbon products in its agronomy programme, which has helped to reduce pesticide use by up to 95 per cent.

Park, who won the HSBC title twice, said: "This is one of the most beautiful and perfectly conditioned golf courses in the world.

"Learning about their sustainability efforts has been really educational. I hope that by HSBC taking the opportunity to highlight Sentosa Golf Club's work, other clubs will be inspired and that we will all try better to make a difference to our world."