Golf in Vietnam: Da Nang, Hoi An & Phu Quoc
Vietnam has quietly become one of Asia's most exciting places to play — world-class courses on dramatic coastline, at a fraction of the cost of Japan or Australia. Here's where to play and how to plan it.
Why Vietnam for golf?
For most of the last two decades, a golf trip to Asia meant Thailand, Japan or Malaysia. Vietnam was an afterthought with a handful of courses. That has changed fast. The country now has well over seventy courses, and crucially the newest wave of them were laid out by the designers whose names sell golf holidays — Greg Norman, Robert Trent Jones II, Colin Montgomerie, Luke Donald. They were built from scratch on genuinely spectacular ground: rolling coastal dunes, cliff tops above the South China Sea, and the forested foothills behind the central beaches.
The second reason is value. Green fees that would be well over US$300 at a comparable resort course in Japan or Australia sit in the US$120–230 range here, caddies are included or inexpensive, and the surrounding hotels, food and transfers cost a fraction of what you would pay elsewhere in the region. You get a championship-standard round and a five-star beach holiday in the same week without the Gulf or Australian price tag. Add short flight times from Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei and Singapore and it is easy to see why the fairways are increasingly full of Korean and Japanese groups.
The Da Nang and Hoi An cluster
If you only have time for one region, make it this one. Central Vietnam packs more top-tier golf into a thirty-kilometre coastal strip than anywhere else in the country, and you can base yourself at a single beach resort and reach everything by short transfer.
- Ba Na Hills Golf Club — Luke Donald's first solo design, set inland in the misty hills behind Da Nang. A cooler, more parkland feel than the coastal courses, consistently rated among Vietnam's best, and a welcome change of scenery mid-trip.
- BRG Da Nang Golf Resort — a Greg Norman links laid out over real dunes beside the beach, firm and fast with the kind of windswept, run-the-ball challenge you expect from a proper links. A floodlit nine lets you play on into the evening.
- Montgomerie Links Vietnam — Colin Montgomerie's course sits between Da Nang and Hoi An, a tighter, more strategic test through sand and native grasses that rewards position over power.
- Hoiana Shores Golf Club — a Robert Trent Jones II design right on the shoreline south of Hoi An, arguably the most dramatic of the lot, with holes playing directly along the sea. It regularly tops "best in Vietnam" lists and is the showpiece of a large integrated resort.
Fly into Da Nang, stay at a beach resort near the Marble Mountains, and you can tee off at a different signature course each morning with the old town of Hoi An a short drive away for the afternoons and evenings.
Phu Quoc and the islands
Off the far south coast, the island of Phu Quoc has grown into a resort destination in its own right, and Vinpearl Golf Phu Quoc anchors the golf. It is a long, generous, well-conditioned course wrapped into a large resort complex of hotels, a safari park and a water park — which makes it an easy sell for a mixed group of golfers and families. Phu Quoc suits a slower, one-base holiday: play a round, then spend the rest of the day on the beach. Direct flights from the mainland hubs make it simple to bolt onto a Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang leg.
Ho Tram, near Ho Chi Minh City
For golfers landing in the south, the headline course is The Bluffs Ho Tram Strip, a Greg Norman layout about two hours by road from Ho Chi Minh City. Built across enormous natural sand dunes above the sea, it is as muscular and photogenic as any course in the country and has hosted serious professional events. It pairs naturally with a couple of days in the city at the start or end of a trip, and there are further courses within reach for a two- or three-round southern swing.
When to play
Vietnam is long and narrow, so the weather varies by region, but for the central cluster around Da Nang and Hoi An the sweet spot runs roughly February to August, which is the driest, most reliable window. The heaviest central rains arrive from around September to December, so plan the headline courses outside that if you can. In the south, around Ho Tram and Phu Quoc, the drier season is broadly November to April.
Whenever you go, the heat and humidity are real. Book the earliest tee times you can — a round that starts at dawn is a different, far more pleasant experience than one teed off at midday, and the light on the coastal holes first thing is worth the early alarm.
As a rough budgeting guide, expect green fees of around US$120–230 per round at the signature courses, higher at peak times and at the very top names, with caddie and buggy costs on top but modest by regional standards.
Planning a group trip
Vietnamese golf is busy, and the best tee times at the marquee courses go early — particularly in high season and around Korean and Japanese holiday periods. A few things worth knowing before you build an itinerary:
- Book tee times well ahead. Weekend mornings at the top courses can be sold out weeks in advance. Lock the schedule before you confirm flights and hotels.
- Caddies are standard. Nearly every course requires a caddie, and buggies are the norm in the heat. It is part of the experience rather than an optional extra.
- Mind the transfers. Within the Da Nang–Hoi An strip the drives are short, but a southern trip can mean a couple of hours each way to Ho Tram. Sequence the courses so you are not fighting traffic before a dawn tee time.
- Keep non-golfers happy. The same resorts that host the golf are built for everyone else too — spa days, Vietnamese cooking classes, the beaches, the old town of Hoi An and island day trips. A good itinerary runs the golf and the non-golf in parallel so nobody is waiting around.
The appeal of a Vietnam golf trip is that nobody has to compromise: the players get coastal championship courses, everyone else gets one of Asia's best beach holidays, and the bill is smaller than you would expect from either.
This is exactly the kind of trip our golf concierge is built for. We handle the tee times, caddies and inter-course transfers, keep the scoring and logistics running, and set up a parallel itinerary for anyone in the party who would rather be at the spa or on the beach — with Korean- and Japanese-speaking coordinators for mixed groups. Tell us your group size and dates and we will plan your golf trip around them, and sort the flights to Da Nang while we are at it.
Planning a golf trip or a group?
Our golf concierge handles tee times, caddies, transfers, scoring and parallel itineraries for non-golfers — with Korean- and Japanese-speaking coordinators. Tell us your group and dates.