Golf.com top 100 Asian Courses ratings

[AltC]

Golf.com issued a top 100 Asian Courses Rating end of May - interesting that it focuses mainly on Australia,Japan and NZ courses with a sprinkling of SEA courses. Some Korean, Thai and very few China courses- Vietnam gets 3 mentions even Cambodia, Indonesia and Nepal get one mention - but no Philippine courses represented - this is strange to me and seems to indicate they did their ratings from afar without much on the ground knowledge- for instance Hong Kong gets one entry Royal HK Golf Club (composite) you cannot play this course unless you qualify for the HK open?

Comments from Asian Golfers?

[AltC]

https://golf.com/travel/top-100-courses-asia-pacific-ranking/?amp=1
 

sorry here is the link.

[Schley]

Going to Japan later this year for a golf trip.  Great culture and food to boot.  Downside is the cost.  Vietnam is not nearly as good as Japan for golf or food, but interesting culture and much cheaper.

 

Korea is a middle ground as golf is probably above Vietnam and food is decent, slightly cheaper than Japan.

 

Thailand is decent golf with several areas that have resorts. Cost is very reasonable with good culture and food.

 

China u would have to go to mission hills and make it a golf trip. Not much golf outside of there.

 

Overall I would rank

Japan

Korea

Vietnam

Thailand

China 

 

Singapore is very expensive and only a couple courses. Malaysia has a few courses but nothing worth making a trip over. 

 

Australia is a top golf trip by far.  Sandbelt bad Tasmania are both highlights of your golfing life.  Nz u need to get Tara iti to make it worth it imo.  

[AltC]

Schley - agree that the Sandbelt courses in Melbourne are world class - Japan ( your trip sounds amazing) also has world level golf courses - not so accessible and expensive (Melbourne ain’t cheap either anymore). But my point was the ranking seems other than above to focus on “new” courses (presumably cos they paid for advertising) rather than established courses in Asia - there is a whole plethora of great golf in SE Asia especially which was not in on the list - Thailand has at least 20 courses which would blow your socks off as does China, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines. It’s a fallacy of golf journalism that they focus on the new in “developing” golf markets and “the historical” in older golf markets. I think if people scratch a little deeper than the superficial way this “top courses” is portrayed they could find “better” more “real” travel planning options for great golf. I am biased however as I live in SE Asia (for the last 30 years) so I know where to go to find what I like! However as these top golf list are predominantly aimed at golf tourists from USA or Europe I wanted to get some Asian perspective going on where the great golf destinations are - I have been going to Hua Hin in Thailand for over 25 years and the golf there is great - super courses - good value- fantastic experience for instance!

[aussiepanda]

Heya responding to this, I live in China so I get to go here and there to play golf in Asia, I'll give you my breakdown for places.

1. Vietnam Da Nang area, hoiana,brg, bana hills and Laguna are absolute world class at ok price

Must have foursomes they don't allow solos any more which sucks

2. Thailand

Pattaya has Siam 4 courses all great but again need at least twosome

Other courses in Pattaya allow singles most of the time

Huahin has black mountain and pineapple valley both top notch

Phuket has five good tracks

Chiang Mai has four good ones

3 Japan, expensive and exclusive and also need foursomes, not my first choice

4. Ditto south Korea

5. Malaysia has some good courses but again you need foursomes 

6. The reason Philippines isn't on the list is because there just aren't any good courses there tbh, I've played wackwack , southwoods, canlubang etc and they really aren't much better than a country track in Australia but 200 bucks usd to play, plus the infrastructure there is absolutely broken