By Kent Gray
Gil Hanse’s first Middle East creation has received widespread acclaim since its opening in March 2017. Indeed, the renowned American architect’s 18-hole desert links at Trump International Golf Club, Dubai raced into the Golf Digest Middle East Top 10 course rankings within a year of opening, no small feat given the heady competition across the region.

Trump Dubai’s Par-3 course is a mini-me version of the immaculately maintained championship layout where Hanse has placed the same high premium on fun – think moonscape fairways, greens that are a joy to putt and tightly clipped run-offs that offer ample short game challenge.

The 1257-yard layout is now floodlit, meaning you can tee it up after work to dial in your wedge game or introduce friends or family to the game from as little as AED 100 per player.  The club offers tee times from 6.30am to 8.10pm, seven days a week and best of all, a challenge for all levels – the progressive tees offer holes as long as 210 yards while newcomers and juniors can play a course with tees set-up between 65 and 110 yards.

Fun. Illuminated. Just as Hanse envisaged it.

The post QUICK SHOT: Trump International Golf Club, Dubai’s ‘mini-me’ 9-holer appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
Thailand has been a holiday favourite for golfers from the UAE for years with Phuket, Pattaya and Hua Hin in the south home to a concentration of highly regarded courses. The Kingdom’s north warrants equal consideration with Chiangmai Highlands Golf and Spa Resort one of the most attractive lures in the country’s tropical highlands. Set in the foot-hills east of Chiang Mai, the resort offers 27 holes of Schmidt-Curley designed golf – the Valley and Highlands nines opened in 2005 and the Mountain nine added in 2015. Here magnificent mountain views meet the strategic challenge and pristine playing surfaces. With 19 private villas, a spa, swimming pool overlooking the course and that famed Thai food and hospitality, it is little wonder Chiangmai Highlands is among Thailand’s most awarded golf resorts, including being named one of the top three resorts in Asia at the 2015 Asian Golf Awards.

The post QUICK SHOT: Chiangmai Highlands Golf and Spa Resort appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Nearly 70 years after first hosting The Open, Northern Ireland’s fabled Dunluce Links have undergone a majestic makeover for this month’s much-anticipated encore

By Kent Gray
Home to more than 300 golf courses, including a quarter of the world’s links layouts, Ireland is a golfer’s paradise. The uninitiated will see what all the fuss is about when a northern gem, Royal Portrush Golf Club, hosts the Open Championship for just the second time from July 18-21.

Originally designed by Harry Colt, the club’s Dunluce Links take in sweeping County Antrim vistas including the ruins of Dunluce castle from which the course takes its name. Royal Portrush is a changed beast from the layout that Englishman Max Faulkner conquered to become the ‘Champion Golfer of the Year’ in 1951. Five new greens, eight additional tee boxes, 10 more bunkers and the creation of two new holes, the 7th and 8th, will greet the world’s best players at the 148th Open 68 years later. The par-5 7th, all 590 yards of it, has earned plenty of pre-tournament press (see p54) but this is a course that will wow at every turn, including the pictured approach to the green on the par-4 15th hole, ‘Skerries’. All 190,000+ tickets sold out for the first time in Open history so sit back and enjoy being part of the estimated global television audience of 600 million who will take in the magnificence of Irish golf during the last of the year’s four major championships.

The post QUICK SHOT: Royal Portrush Golf Club appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.