WANNING, China – There are precious gems in Asia, to be sure. The continent’s jade carvings are known worldwide for their exquisite artistry. But in the world of golf courses and clubs, there is one incomparable crown jewel of Asia – Shanqin Bay Golf Club.
Perched atop a cliff with sweeping panoramic views of the East China Sea coastline of Hainan Island, Shanqin Bay has in 12 years become recognized as a marquee club and one of the top courses in the world.
For good reason.
We owe this gem to the vision of Jun Wang, past chairman of CITIC, a Chinese state-owned investment company. Wang first saw the property from a helicopter. He quickly instructed the pilot to land, got out and was dumbfounded by the natural beauty of all he saw – the topography, the beach and ocean views, the pineapple farm and the old abandoned military site. “Top golf courses are sometimes not where you would want them to be; they are gifts from heaven and cannot be moved around,” said Wang, who quickly purchased the land and hired Kurt Huseman of Landscapes Unlimited and Bill Coore of Coore & Crenshaw Golf Course Architects to bring his golf vision to reality.
Wang died in 2019, but new chairman Yu Jiang has every intent to continue Wang’s dream at what is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 6 international course and tops in Asia. “The first time I saw Shanqin Bay I loved it. … I said if it ever becomes available, I want to own it,” Jiang said.
Ready to be stunned?
Entering the Shanqin Bay grounds through not one but two guard gates, the 2-mile road gently ascends along a snaking drive affording anticipatory glimpses of the low-lying jungle, distant vistas and first peeks at the golf course.
For those who need a little warm-up, a stop off at a remote driving range is available. More of an oasis, this range offers food and drink, attendants looking after your every need, personalized welcome signs and a practice surface where a blade of grass would not even think of being out of place.
Continue to the clubhouse, where you are warmly hailed by a sea of smiles from an assortment of staff and uniformed caddies who applaud your arrival and heartily greet you in Mandarin for visiting Chinese or English for visiting Westerners.
The welcoming open-air design of the clubhouse leads a short distance from the driveway to an outdoor viewing patio with jaw-dropping, 180-degree views of the ocean and shoreline below. You relax and soak in the spectacle with a cup of ginger tea. After a visit to the five-star locker rooms, the adjacent first tee awaits you.
Shanqin Bay starts off with an unsympathetic par 4 asking for a strong drive and long iron or metal for your following approach. It’s a difficult par and a hole not too different from the Crenshaw/Coore opener at Streamsong Red in Florida, a long uphiller. At No. 2 you are presented with a shorter, friendlier par 5 offering dual panoramas of the sea below and clubhouse above. Shanqin Bay continues with a downhill oceanfront par 3 framed by a rock formation called “The Black Stone Beast.” More panda than beast, this hole will grab your full attention in a healthy wind.
A medium-length par 4 follows, the first to feature a clever side entryway into the green; a feature repeated a number of times over the 18.
Hungry? Hope so, for next up is one of the unique and special aspects of your day at Shanqin Bay. Nestled between Nos. 4 and 5 is a restored, tiny old farmhouse compound and the first of two halfway houses. Unlike most other halfways, this is no quick “dog and a beer” stop, but rather is a full sit-down meal with servers, a chef and delightful local fare that changes day to day. A wide culinary range is offered from Hainan to Western dishes, with the chef’s goal to amaze and delight. Winged beans, roast coconut chicken, stir-fried Chinese flowering cabbage, Pandan bean curd, Hainan noodles and the must-have Chairman’s Eggs (hard boiled and infused with soy) are just a few items to tantalize palates. You also could be served anything from Japanese curry to New York-style pizza to spaghetti to Louisiana jambalaya – it’s a daily surprise.
Much of the fruit and vegetables that grace your table are sourced in organic gardens on property at Shanqin Bay. For dessert you may enjoy chilled mango sago cream with pomelo and an assortment of native melons including succulent mangos, impossibly fresh papayas, local sweet pineapples, white and red dragon fruit and Asian pears. Local beers, worldwide whiskeys and fresh-squeezed juices from any number of tropical fruits quench any and all thirsts.
Sated and off to the fifth hole, players are presented a trio of par 4s. The first – uphill, short and blind – is followed by a huge and formidable pair at Nos. 6 and 7.
No. 8 is known as The Chairman’s Hole as it was a favorite of Chairman Wang. Short, it plays over a series of volcanic caves with a greensite atop a natural plateau just above the crashing waves. Coore was said to have left the plateau almost untouched, simply planting seeds and leaving the putting surfaces and surrounds as they were.
The next string of holes – a challenging par 4, a birdieable par 5, a monstrous par 3, followed by a stingy par 4 – brings players back to the thirteenth tee and the second halfway house. Perched on a hilltop with ocean views, this one offers the same amenities as its sibling at No. 4 but with a different and equally delightful menu.
A hearty meal may be needed, as the 13th is Shanqin Bay’s longest hole. At 648 yards, a par here by any player is a satisfying accomplishment. The 14th, connecting a lower with a higher portion of the property, is a short par 3, uphill and blind to a highly contoured green with another side entryway leading to a false front.
If you veer a bit at Shanqin Bay, you are well advised not to spend much time looking for balls in the surrounding foliage. This is prime habitat for the Chinese cobra and more rarely seen Chinese krait, the latter often listed as the deadliest snake in the world. Luckily, these snakes prefer not to see people as much as people prefer not to see them, so sightings are infrequent.
The spectacular 15th, cascading down before rising sternly to a large green on a bluff next to the clubhouse, is a huge par 4 that, under a different routing, easily could have been the finishing hole. The next two short par 4s are photo opportunities, tumbling downhill to well-protected greens and potentially drivable for longer hitters.
Shanqin Bay finishes with an uphill, dogleg two-shotter. The tee ball must chart a daunting aerial path, requiring a strong drive to clear both a canyon and an old military wall while staying short of the dense foliage on the opposite side. It is a cut-off-as-much-as-you-choose affair that, if properly navigated, leaves a shorter approach into a well-contoured infinity green with a fitting finishing view – nothing but ocean as a backdrop.
The unparalleled aesthetics of Shanqin Bay are obvious and undeniable, and the course layout is just as stunning. Golf course quality and character are measured in diverse ways, but variation is universally accepted as a positive trait, even a measure of greatness. Shanqin Bay is solid gold in variation. Club selection, direction, elevation, length and shot options/movement are all well-varied yet well tied together from hole to hole – each challenges and fascinates. One hole beckons the next as each green complex almost melts into the following tee, creating a pleasing interconnecting flow to the routing. Like an 18-chapter book, a story is told where no episode can be missed.
Put me down as a fan of Coore’s greenside entryways. It’s very cool to intentionally target an approach to one side of a green, execute and watch the ball trundle sideways and down to the day’s pin placement. Coore must have liked this, too, as Shanqin Bay features no less than six greens with this feature.
Conditioning? Few of the world’s courses could compete. Acclaimed superintendent John Wall keeps Shanqin Bay’s paspalum in perfect condition, firm and fast. “The goal is to produce an experience that forever changes your outlook for what a golf course can be,” Wall said.
But great courses are not only about great architecture. The staff can make or break a golfing experience at any club. The team at Shanqin Bay may be the gold standard.
Many Asian clubs, as at Shanqin Bay, employ women caddies. Here the caddies are not only employed but given extensive training in both golf and languages, encouraged and provided with time and access to work on their own games, and are even occasionally given written tests on their skills.
Think one caddie per player is adequate? At Shanqin Bay a normal foursome has not four but five caddies. The fifth, called a shadow caddie, follows a group repairing divots, forecaddying for blind shots and carrying all sorts of extras – emergency radio, first aid, food and drink, even spare golf accessories.
The Shanqin Bay caddies, also trained dancers, put on dance revues (both Asian and Western) as evening entertainment for members and guests. I challenge you to find that anywhere else in golf.
“Shanqin Bay is more like a family than a golf club. … It starts with the employees who not only work together but live together. … It then carries over to the members who feel like when they arrive at the front gate, they have finally made it home,” executive secretary Joey Garon said.
Family indeed. No better example can be given, as Shanqin Bay makes available three meals a day for all 150 employees, 365 days a year.
“Shanqin Bay is one of the rare clubs of the world where the experience is in equal measure to the greatness of the golf course,” Golfweek’s Best rater Dave Edwards said.
“Shanqin Bay is simply a world-class golf experience,” said international golf photographer Gary Lisbon.
Clearly, Shanqin Bay is a 24-carat club, course and experience.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Shanquin Bay golf course on Hainan Island in China stuns on all levels
