Located around 45 minutes north of downtown Phnom Penh, the Lakes Course at Chhun On Golf Resort, the first of two planned championship golf courses, is a stunning Brian Curley design featuring Zeon Zoysia fairways and Zoysia Primo greens, ensuring top-notch playing surfaces. Although the trees have yet to mature, this is still a world-class affair that will in time take it's place at the very top table of Asian golf.
The course is in immaculate condition, with pristine fairways, very fast undulating greens and gorgeous white sand bunkers that are certainly the best in Cambodia. The caddies are generally excellent and good fun, and importantly are always ready with an umbrella to provide shade, which is important given the lack of shade until the trees lining the fairways mature.
While there are numerous excellent holes, notably the par-3s which typically have generous bowl-shaped greens that tend to feed your ball towards the hole if you can get reasonably close.
However, it's the par-5s at the end of each nine that will make or break your scorecard. The 9th arcs around a huge lake that will swallow up anything that fails to find the narrow fairway, and on approach you have to traverse more water to find the green, which is severely sloped with a deep swale front right.
The last hole is friendlier, but again there's water on the left the entire length of the hole. Shorter than the 9th at just 489 yards from the blues, it's tempting to attack the green on your second, but with water in front of the putting surface it's a bold play to take it on.
While the course itself is a delight, there's one more standout feature in the form of the special nineteenth hole. Whether to settle a tied score or just for fun, you tee off from in front of the clubhouse to a spectacular island green which is accessible only by boat, offering a unique challenge and a picturesque conclusion to a stunning round of golf.
While the huge clubhouse is still under contruction as of writing (August 2025), the temporary locker rooms are perfectly adequate, and a range of food is available at the on-course tea houses. There's a practice green, although the driving range is still under construction but due to open in the middle of 2025.
While it's early days, as the course matures and the facilities are completed Chhun On Golf Resort is sure to becomea premier golfing destination, promising a blend of challenging play and breathtaking beauty.