Thailand Golf Holidays, Phuket Golf Packages, Hua Hin Golf Vacations

LPGA Shines In Thailand

Thailand knows how to put on a show, and the top LPGA players will be at the Honda LPGA Thailand this month.

With the worlds 59 best lady golfers in attendance, the Siam Country Club in Pattaya will be the perfect backdrop to kick off the LPGA tour season in style.
This popular tournament was launched in 2006 when a certain Miss Hee-Won Han from South Korea won the inaugural event. Since then the likes of Suzann Petersen from Norway, Lorena Ochoa from Mexico , Ai Miyazato from Japan, Yanni Tseng from Taiwan have all held the coveted trophy.

Add star names such as Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer and crowd favourite Michelle Wie, and you can understand why the sponsors are prepared to offer a massive US$1.8million in prize money.

Held at the Siam Country Club’s famous Old Course, a par 72 playing 6,477 yards for the girls, the players all commented on how perfect the fairways and greens were playing.

With most sports suffering during the recent economy down, the golf industry has turned to Asia for its future.  The exposure that the event brings to Thailand is truly global. Meanwhile perhaps the biggest winner will once again be one of Thailand’s number one courses, Siam Country Club in Pattaya.

If you want to follow in the stars footsteps, why not plan to attend the event and then play the Pattaya golf club’s two championship courses? The Old Course and Plantation courses are the 2 best Pattaya golf courses, and by a wide margin.

Panya Indra Excels on Several Counts

Playing golf in Thailand is an experience every time you tee off, and certainly that is what you get when you step up to the tee box at Panya Indra Golf Club.

Not far from the center of Bangkok, this 27-hole golf club is open for both day time and night golf. The course was designed back in 1989 by U.S. designer Ronald Fream. Fream used only 800 rai of land just outside Bangkok to make you forget that you are on the outskirts of a major city. There are three separate 9-hole courses, with their own individual design aptly named the Lagoon Course, Palm Course or Garden Course.

The Bangkok golf course was so clever that they constructed a man-made dyke around the course to protect it from last year’s floods. It worked and in spite of water in the roads outside the course, the course was kept dry and is now in pristine condition.

Hua Hin: The 'Other' Golf Courses

Just about all golfers in Hua Hin want to play the two area 5 star courses; Black Mountain and Banyan Golf Club. Next on the list and a notch below for most golfers are Springfield Royal and Palm Hills.

Then there are the ‘Other’ courses. Some golfers skip them altogether, and if you are one who demands pristine country club conditions, luxurious clubhouses with lots of niceties and amenities and only modern designs, perhaps you should too.  For the rest of us though these courses all have something to offer and can make for an enjoyable round of golf.

Royal Hua Hin
Thailand’s first course, dating back to the 1920s when it was constructed next to the Hua Hin train station by a Scottish railroad engineer working on the ‘Orient Express’ route. The rough is rough, the fairways are patchy, and the bunkers are true hazards. However, the Royal Hua Hin Golf Club is a wonderful old style design and the greens and collar areas are usually kept in good condition. The large mature trees lining the fairways make this course at a minimum a great days ‘walk in the park’. The monkeys roaming the course and the surrounding temples further add to the experience and the Hua Hin golf course is so close to central Hua Hin you can walk to the course.

Imperial Lake View
You can expect a warm welcome and easy smile from all the staff at the 36-hole Imperial Lake View Golf Club. The course design is good (particularly the A-B courses) and the greens are well maintained, though fairway conditions were inconsistent on a recent visit. The rolling property is quite large and the course has a park land layout that provides a feeling of isolation with nature on several holes. 

Golf Pride Of The Royal Thai Navy

Here is a great story from a good friend in Pattaya.

I was once like you folks—playing all the Pattaya golf courses, tipping those lovely caddies twice as much as I should, riding a la cart rather than do the plebeian trudge that would scuff my alligator Foot-Joys, gamboling over golf courses in Cambodia where the game is just getting a foothold…Then, one by one, my old and now ex-friends in foreign lands started treating the loans I had given them as largesse.

Subsequent penury has separated me from your good golf company. Now I rent a one-room apartment well south of Pattaya. My golf is reduced to Plutaluang, the Navy golf course in Sattahip. I ride to the course on a rented Honda 125, my bag athwart the buddy seat. I almost never get run over by trucks and buses or those tourist vans with bar and movies that haul you, my old golfing cronies, to one Pattaya golf course or another, then back to the diversions of Pattaya City.

Plutaluang has four well-designed nines, built largely on hilly terrain that makes them interesting. The Thai Navy Golf Course is definitely a good value for money with normal green fees of $35 US Dollars or less during the low season from May to September. The greens are not bad at all, though some are huge enough that an “on the green” in a far corner gives you a long rolling shot tougher than you’d have if you were chipping from the same distance.

Lam Luk Ka, A Piece of Bangkok Golf Countryside

Lam Luk Ka Country Club sets the stage for a golf experience not easily forgotten.  Lam Luk Ka has two 18-hole courses; the East and West courses. These 36 holes meander through Bangkok's wetlands, where shade trees and water ways provide homes for birds and wildlife and a relaxing day in a park land environment.

The Championship East Course played host to the 2002 Thailand PGA Championship and 2009 Asian Tour qualifying events. The Lam Luk Ka East Course will challenge the best players, but make for an enjoyable round if played from the somewhat friendlier white tees.

The West Course is relatively short, at 6,605 yards, but water comes into play on 15 holes making course management a key factor in scoring. The West Course is a favourite of tourists, recreational golfers, including myself. Unusually, it is actually feasible to play a combination of these two courses, making each visit to the club a unique experience.

Most of the time I prefer to play golf at Lam Luk Ka in the afternoon. This ensures quieter fairways as Lam Luk Ka gets little play after 12:00. Watching the sunset on the back nine is a great way to finish any day, no less one that includes a good round of golf. The course is kept in fabulous condition from tee to green.  However, green reading can be tricky and it is best left to one of the friendly and experienced caddies.
Some of the most memorable holes on the West Course include the par-3 eighth. A large water hazard short and right of the green punished errant tee shots with a slide fade. This applies to me most of the time!

Number 13, lucky for some and unlucky for others, is perhaps the best par-5 on the West Course. The key is to hit the fairway with your tee shot, because water guards the entire left side of the hole, and anything right forces you to aim at the water for your lay-up. It is a difficult approach shot with mounding guarding the front right of the green and water and bunkering guarding the left. A par is a good score here.
To complete the round the 18th is a long a 415 yard par-4. I often play conservative and hit a 3-wood off the tee. Too long goes through the fairway, or worse into the water. The second shot is a layup up short of the creek that bisects the fairway. Hopefully good strategy is rewarded with an easy chip and one put to save par.

The club house although not modern, does have large lockers and an excellent restaurant with reasonably priced Thai food.

Thai Country Club and Alpine Golf Club normally rate as the top Bangkok golf courses, but I would add Lam Luk Ka as a contender, especially if you enjoy a relatively unknown, but nevertheless good golf course in a countryside setting as a top priority.

Golf In Bangkok

Bangkok is an enchanting city with rich golf, culture and attractions. It is known as an international golf destination for its diversity of 60 golf courses, year-round golfing weather, delicious food, numerous attractions, and most of all friendly people. Bangkok was voted “World’s Best City” by Travel +Leisure magazine in 2010. The championship golf courses and vibrant streets of Bangkok never stop to amaze vising golfers.

Courses such as Thai Country Club, where Tiger Woods cruised to a 10 shot victory in the 1997 Asian Honda Classic and Alpine Golf Club where again Tiger Woods won at the 2000 Johnnie Walker Classic exemplify some of Bangkok’s best golf. Nowadays, there is Royal Gems Golf City where golfers can experience August National by day and Bangkok by night.

Not only are the famous golf courses available for visitor play, but also some of the lesser known golf courses are truly gems in their own right. Thana City is Thailand’s only Greg Norman design and is located only 20 minutes from downtown Bangkok. Muang Kaew is similarly located and is one of the best maintained Bangkok golf courses.

Bangkok offers a truly unique golfing experience in its own chaos that defines the city where anything is possible. A place where golfers from the east meets golfers from west, where flat courses configured from rice paddies meet hilly layout designed by the world’s greatest golf architects, where high-rise buildings meets enticing temples and where street markets meets high-end retail shops. There is a Bangkok golf holiday for everyone.

Phuket Golf Course Improvements

Things are changing at many on the Phuket golf courses and improvements are taking place all over the island. Loch Palm Golf Club is leading the way and the new club house is all set to be open and in place for the coming high season. The style is similar to neighbor and sister course Red Mountain Golf Club with a magnificent new locker room on the first floor that has fantastic views over the putting green and Crystal Lake. The open air restaurant on the ground floor is in the same location but refurbished in a new style. With the improvements already in place on the course, Loch Palm leads the standards for other courses to follow.

Phuket Country Club is set to follow Loch Palm with a new clubhouse and they hope to have this in place by the start of the 2012 season. The new design will have a new location for players to check in at the Pro-Shop and the clubhouse will stretch down the 18th fairway with great views of players finishing their rounds. The oldest Phuket golf course is in need really in need of this improvement and the new clubhouse will bring the club up to the standard that golfers expect for their Thailand golf holiday.

Laguna Golf Club (home of the 2009 Thailand Open) was also hoping for a major change this year with plans for the redesign of a number of holes and the re-seeding of grass on many holes. Unfortunately this has not happened much to the frustration of the golf management. Moreover, building and investment in the new Angsana Hotel (in place of the old Sheraton) at the Laguna Phuket complex has meant that work on the Laguna Phuket Golf Club has been put back until May 2012 at the earliest.

Laem Chabang Golf Has New Grass

Last month I had the good fortune to play my favorite Pattaya golf course, Laem Chabang International Country Club. To my great surprise the Mountain Course, usually considered the best Laem Chabang golf course, and was closed for renovations, so we played the Lake Course and the Valley Course instead. About half way through the Lake nine I noticed something strange around the greens. The fringe areas seem to be brighter color than the fairways and greens. Upon closer inspection I realized that the fringes had new Paspalum sod on them.

Checking around some more the caddies confirmed this as well as went over the entire maintenance program of Laem Chabang International Country Club.

1.    Valley Course: All 9 holes completed with Paspalum grass fairways, tee, boxes, and fringe areas. New white golf sand in greenside bunkers.

2.    Lake Course: All 9 holes have new Paspalum tee-boxes. Hole 9 completed with new grass and sand. Other holes to follow, but schedule unknown.

3.    Mountain Course: Closed for 2-3 months for grassing of tee-boxes, and fringe areas. New concrete cart path being installed to eliminate high bank areas and tendency for carts to fall-over.

Golfing In A Phuket Tin Mine

We all like to boast that we have found a real gem of a course to play!
Well if you decide to add a Phuket golf vacation to this year’s agenda, then I suggest you check out Red Mountain Golf Club. You will not be disappointed.

Launched without too much fanfare in late 2008, Red Mountain has become the new kid on the block. Once the core of Phuket‘s tin mining industry, this course nestles in the lush Kathu Valley and is a 20 minute drive from Patong Beach.

Red Mountain is owned by the same company that owns the nearby Loch Palm Golf Club and Riverdale Golf Club in Bangkok. The course designer Jon Morrow has been given a free hand to design a world class golf course that tests all golfers’ course management skills and shot shaping capabilities. Every hole has its own great theme, and there are mouth watering obstacles around each corner.

The 1st hole lets you tee off downhill through red rocks either side of the green. This hole gently gets you into the mood of what is ahead. The 2nd is a real test , a par-5 with an uphill drive over water,  then a long iron second shot dog leg right to get into view of the green.  Hole 8 is a par-4 off an elevated tee, with a lake to avoid on the right. Great if you can make it to the landing area, otherwise very wet.

Fun Bangkok Golf Course And Great Value Too

Many golf course designers forget that 90% of the players who will try to conquer their golf course are likely to be weekend or holiday amateurs, not golf professionals.

Jack Nicklaus for example is incensed when he sees owners trying to extend the tee boxes to make holes as long as possible. ‘Why go for 250 yard carries when your average Thai golfer probably only hits his drive 170-190 yards. It also adds to the maintenance costs and watering bill.’

It was therefore refreshing to meet and speak with one of Thailand’s leading course architects Pirapon Namatra, famed for creating Santiburi Samui, Banyan Golf Club and the subject of this post; Bangsai Country Club. Pirapon who designs, creates and builds golf courses said ‘I try to create a fun golf course, with a variety of holes, making it not too easy and not too difficult to play.’