43 Generally, in Vietnam, water is cheap. You aren’t trying to get water to the course, you’re trying to get it off the course through drainage rather than huge and expensive irrigation systems. Many projects rely on surface water – you dig a lake, route the drainage to it and you get your own water. You tend to get water year-round, so most of the time your lakes look like lakes. You can get to sites, dig a hole two metres deep, and it’s sloshing with water. Even on the sand dune sites at the beach, there’s water.” Curley’s mention of sand dunes brings us to what makes Vietnam a truly exciting country for golf. Just glancing at the map shows how long the country’s coastline is, and quite a bit of it is sandy. “Vietnam is a spectacular country. There is an energy and vibrancy to the country unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been. When you look at the coastline from about Hue past Da Nang and going another 200300 miles, it is all sand, some of the best dunesland anywhere,” says Gorman. “If you go straight across the water from Hanoi, you’re in mudflats,” says Curley. “But at a 45-degree angle south, you hit the sand, and it is mostly all sand down the coast. I’ve seen some of the best sites I have ever seen. You basically have two kinds of sites, those along the coast, and on the lower parts of the mountains, Sand dunes that are not used for agriculture. The rice lands are protected. You’re either at the beach or you’re in the rocky hills.” Calver adds: “I drove from Dung Hoi to Ho Chi Minh, basically hiking over sand dunes. There is phenomenal coastline and a lot of sand. Some have rock mixed in with the sand but there could be a considerable amount of great coastal golf courses.” There are already plenty of good courses along the Vietnamese coast. The best, according to Top 100 Golf Courses rankings, is the Bluffs Ho Tram Strip, designed by Greg Norman’s practice and part of a large casino resort, 80 miles south-east of Ho Chi Minh City. The course explores enormous, 50-metre-high sand dunes, and every hole has a view of the sea, but they do not actually touch the water; that land has been reserved for future development. The Jones-designed Hoiana Shores, ranked second, does have some golf “ From a tourist standpoint, Vietnam has the potential to be a hub for southeast Asia” Photo: Laguna Lang Co Since the pandemic, Laguna Lang Co has seen a rise in Vietnamese golfers, from 10 per cent to at least 30 per cent
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