Hua Hin

Royal Hua Hin Golf Course

Royal Hua Hin Golf Course sits in Hua Hin town, next to the railway station, rather than out on a resort road. The club describes itself as the first standard golf course in Thailand. Earlier golf already existed in Bangkok, including at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, so the careful wording matters: this is a claim about a full, standard course, not a claim that no one had played golf in the country before.

The first nine holes were constructed in 1919 and opened in 1922, during the reign of King Rama VI, who inaugurated the course in 1924. The second nine was finished in 1928, during the reign of King Rama VII. The club credits the project to Prince Purachatra Jayakara (Krom Phra Kamphaengphet Akarayothin), who oversaw the Royal Siamese Railway, and the design to A.O. Robin, a railway engineer. Spellings of that surname vary in later writing; the role, a railway engineer in Siamese service, is the part the sources agree on.

It is an 18-hole, par-72 course. The club publishes a length of 6,678 yards for men and 5,713 yards for women. The layout is a parkland course among large trees. Water is not a main feature of the published card. Because the course is in town and old, the trees and the original ground are the ordinary problems, not a set of later lakes.

The railway is not a tourist garnish. The southern line is how Hua Hin became a seaside town in the first place, and the course was laid out beside it by people connected with that line. If you arrive by train, you are close to the first tee in a way that is unusual for a Thai championship-era club.

See also Black Mountain, west of town, and the Hua Hin region page.