The Best of Bangkok
Given the economic kudos attached to golf in China and the ever-strengthening renminbi these days, a weekend round on an upscale course in Guangdong will cost around HK$2,400 for a visitor. Okay, this generally includes transportation, lunch, cart hire and a little something for the caddie, but even so, this seems wrong. This seems especially wrong when you consider the potential rigmarole of actually crossing the border: overzealous immigration officials, cursed health declaration forms and – horror of horrors – that blasted yellow bus. “It’d be cheaper flying down to Bangkok for the day,” I told a similarly disillusioned golfing chum a few months ago, “and probably less hassle.”
I had it all planned. Take the early morning flight, grab a cab to Thai Country Club, which has the advantage of being, a) a great course and b) only twenty minutes from Bangkok’s new(ish) international airport, play eighteen holes, wash down a fiery chicken curry with a swift couple of bottles of Singha and scurry back to catch the last plane home. Judging by my calculations we’d return to our respective apartments just before midnight. It would be an exhausting day but, I reckoned, no more tiring than lugging our clubs over to Dongguan and back. It would have been cheaper too, largely due to the fact that we’d have expunged 20,000 Asia Miles on the flights. Point proven, albeit with an asterisk or two.
Flying to the Thai capital for a one-day golfing trip is, of course, hardly ideal. You’d be far too rushed. There’d be no time to linger on the clubhouse verandah discussing that brilliant par-save at the fourteenth and they’d certainly be no time to experience the muscle pummeling and joint-twisting that is a Thai massage. But crucially, there’d be no time for any more golf – and Bangkok’s courses deserve a lot more of your time.
Thanks to the Thai golf boom of the 1990s the city is almost saturated with courses – and they all have one thing in common: pancake-flat terrain. If you’re hoping for sweeping vistas and dramatic shifts in elevation then you should catch a domestic flight to Koh Samui and try your luck on the island’s only track, Santiburi Samui, a track so mountainous you’d be better off wearing crampons than softspikes. As a result, the capital’s courses work hard on impressing golfing tourists with their strategic design, their excellent conditioning, well-appointed clubhouses or their faultless service. A select few manage all four, while very nearly all offer tremendous value for money.
Here is a smattering of the best of Bangkok, places where you really get more bang for your baht.
Photography by Charles McLaughlin
Click here to see the published article.
Any avid collector of golfing experiences should reach into their pocket and make the trip to the luxurious Farm at Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand, home to a brilliant Tom Doak-designed track that is full of drama, originality and beauty
The eastern coast of Java, around Surabaya, doesn't automatically spring to mind quality golf. But as Duncan Forgan reveals, there are two courses, a mere hour's drive from the centre of the city that certainly reward the intrepid traveller
An inside look at the Avista Phuket Resort & Spa in Thailand, a luxury retreat that’s becoming a hit with travelling golfers
The Sunshine State is home to 1,340 golf courses, so does it really need two more? Yes, they do – when one realises they're designed by the most influential and pragmatic designers in world golf today – Tom Doak and the team at Coore and Crenshaw
Home to just a handful of courses, Sri Lanka might lag behind some of the region's most popular destinations in respect of playing opportunities. But with a tradition in the Royal and Ancient game virtually unmatched in this part of the world, golf is the perfect complement to a visit to this rejuvenated nation's many off-course wonders
The Land of Smiles will become the world’s leading golf tourism destination within three years if current growth trends continue
Mission Hills Group have announced that all junior golfers under the age of 16 will benefit from free access to three of the resort operator’s golf courses in 2013.
... about nothing. There's more than nature at hand in the evolution of the Old Course, which makes the recent furore over the R&A's changes hard to fathom, writes St Andrews resident Roger McStravick
With three times as many courses as Hong Kong, Singaporeans are rather better served when it comes to choosing where to play. Duncan Forgan checks out the best of what the city-state has to offer.
Golf in Japan, but not as you know it! Charles McLaughlin sampled the delights of summer in Hokkaido, a region renowned for world-renowned skiing, but now one that has become a great golf destination in its own right
