Eighteen is the new sixty.
A mathematical whodunit for the ages, as curious as the case of Benjamin Button. But for the select few who come out at the end of their careers on top of the rat race, the calculus is made less improbable with a large nest egg. Trading fine tailored suits for khakis and polos, keystrokes for swings, and practiced oratory for “Fore!”, they abandon armchairs in air-conditioned comfort for the great wide open.
A club membership completes the set of markers of success in the 5Cs: Cash, Credit Card, Car, Condominium, and Country Club. Nothing quite shouts “summit” like belonging to a country club—the exclusive preserve of the white-collared elite. Actually, strike “white-collared,” which is optional, as nowhere is this more evident than on the member roll of the Crosbie Golf Club. Here, the roost is ruled as much by a demographic closer to Ho Kwon Ping as by “Hokkien Pengs”—a world where class and affluence are often mutually exclusive.
It is in this eclectic milieu that the story of a group of Crosbites begins. Theirs is a critical inflection point in the final chapter of their lives. This is their epilogue.
Eighteen holes beckon like a bosomy belle, a palliative for decades of fruitful toil. Golf is a gentleman’s game, but take that scout’s honour with a large pinch of salt when the practitioners graduated top of the class from a dog-eat-dog world in Singapore’s relentless grind.
The external equanimity of the Crosbie Golf Club belies the latent chaos that thrives within its manicured grounds. Among the protagonists are a newly minted tech millionaire, a movie star, a nepo baby, a self-made entrepreneur, a legal eagle, a hedge fund guru, a top cop, a radio personality, and an investment banker, among others. They number like A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Birdman.
Out of this crucible is forged an unlikely camaraderie, tempered by petty rivalries, newfound innocence, and tragic regression; lessons learned and stubborn recalcitrance, as together they experience joy, laughter, pain, regret, hope, and epiphany.
For some, it may be too late, but a few will yet come to the realization that all that glitters is not gold, and discover the true golden sunset as they embark on the last ride of their lives.
Daniel Cheng is a Singaporean writer. He was an engineer for 15 years and then in gaming and hospitality for over two decades. A regular contributor to news and trade publications, he published his first book, The Rainbow Upopo, in 2021. His second book, the following year, was a non-fiction work, Japan Casino Uprising, about the legalization of casinos in Japan. In 2024, he released his third book, How I built an Integrated Resort, a quintessential handbook on the planning and development of large-scale hospitality resorts which was also translated into Thai in 2025.
