| Address | Lijiang, Yunnan |
|---|---|
| 007 booking hotline | +852 2180 2963 or book-on-line |
| No. of holes | 18 |
| Par/back tee | 72/8,450 yards |
| Course designer | Nelson & Haworth (with input from China top golfer Zhang Lian-wei) |
| Course transport | Cart |
Introduction
Situated at foot of the world famous Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, this is the longest golf course in the world with an elevation of about 3,100 meters above sea level. It is only a couple of hours of flight time from Shenzhen (no direct flight from Hong Kong yet), with the higher altitude, Lijiang is much cooler than Hong Kong so I decided to head north to escape the summer heat in Hong Kong.
Club Facilities & Service
The clubhouse has a decent size, not hugh but with all the normal facilities such as proshop, restaurant and locker. To be beat the cold, they even have a fireplace, the locker also has a nice & warm indoor pool !
The service of the staff is a little slow but OK, food is reasonably good.
Fairway & Green maintenance
All teeing grounds, fairways & greens were all in decent shape but still not Spring City quality.
However, the landscaping was quite nice.
Caddy Service & knowledge
Not bad, very acceptable.
Course Design
The front 9 is built at the foot of the mountain & by a lake, fairways are quite wide & generous, while the back 9 is more challenging as fairways are built around the slopes with more undulations, doglegs & blind shots. There are also many big & well placed bunkers to catch your wayward shots.
With the high altitude & thinner air*, one is expected to hit the ball 15-20% longer than at sea level but the course is much longer than those in the Guangdong area, so there is not much advantage gained by hitting the ball longer (of course, you can still tell your mates if your drive went 300 yards!).
*According to the caddies, 10-15% of the players who come to play here will have some sort of high altitude effect, such as mild headache, breathing difficulties etc, so the club provides 2 canisters of oxygen in each cart (need to pay), in fact, 3 of us experienced varying degrees of effect but the smallest (a girl, did not feel a thing) and played quite well!
Photos
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The opening hole is a ‘S’ shape downhill par 5, with the snowy mountain (if the fog was not there….), the fairway is fairly generous but one still has to the shot in good position for a better angle to the green which is well protected by bunkers.
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A dogleg right, can not see the green from the tee box.
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A nice par 3 with a elevated green with big & deep bunkers back & front, right club selection is the most important here.
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This hole plays slightly upslope and to the left.
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This one is downhill, a big swinger to the right. Longer hitter should carry the bunkers in the front.
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The landing area of the tee has bunkers on either side, green is slightly elevated.
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A fairway with a ‘?’ shape to it with a slightly raised green.
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If you read the picture on the left here, you will know this hole is called ‘difficult’…..and it is. water is on the right & all the way to this beautiful par 3 green.
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462 yards uphill par 4! You will need 2 super shots to get anywhere near the green.
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The back 9 starts with a slighly upslope par 4, the 2nd is back downslope.
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A slight dogleg left, with bunkers on the left too.
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A slightly downslope par 3, all the trouble is on the left.
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A long par 4 with an elevated green.
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Another slightly uphill long par 4.
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A downhill par 4, the green is sloping away from you, better to play short a bit.
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An uphill par 5, the green is hidden behind the trees, have to lay up short.
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A nice looking par 3, you will need to carry the ravinejust short of the green so make sure you have enough club.
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Very long par 5, need to have long & accrate shots to score. The green is rasied.
007’s Rating
The length of the course is a bit scary, I found it difficult to get any GIR…..possibly due to the wet condition when we were there (that’s my excuse anyway!).
As we had rain on the day, we were disappointed that we could not peek through the cloud to see the Snowy mountain top but the view is still very nice nonetheless.
There are many tourist attractions around, the ancient city, the world famous Shangri-La, the night show are all not to be missed.
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