Dalat is a very unexpected golfing destination but it actually has a history going back to 1922 when the French built the Dalat Palace Golf Club which remains one of the most famous golf courses in Asia.
Dalat is located in the Southern part of the Central Highlands of Vietnam and was originally a popular hill station of the French colonialists who built villas here to escape the heat and humidity of Saigon and the other coastal areas. If you are wondering when is the best time to travel then we suggest you read Best time to visit Vietnam for golf holiday.
Dalat is not a large city and at times it resembles the French Alps as it is surrounded by hills covered in pines interspersed with lakes and framed by larger mountains in the background.
The climate is near perfect and it is comfortably warm by day, and nice and cool at night, dropping to perhaps 10 degrees Celsius. During summer months it rains most days but is unusual to have prolonged rain and it usually clears quite quickly.
Dalat is a perfect place to stopover on a north-south tour (or vice versa), or as a one or two day side trip from Ho Chi Minh. For visitors its main attraction is the cooler weather, the wonderful clear mountain air and beautiful views. IT also gives an interesting glimpse of what life was like under the French and to see some of their surviving architecture.
There are currently only two golf courses in Dalat and the Dalat Palace Golf Club has a long and interesting history starting in 1922 and its was twice totally abandoned – once in the Second World War and then again in the Vietnam War. It was renovated in 1994 and deserves its position as one of the best golf courses in Vietnam.
The newest arrival on the scene is the Sacom Tuyen Lam Golf Resort which is located in a pretty and pine-covered valley about 15kms from the city of Dalat. The superb scenery and the cool mountain air make golf in Dalat an exhilarating experience. This is quite a difficult golf course with many elevation changes, strategically-placed bunkers and water hazards.