Blackstone Icheon (North & West)

First opened in 2010, Blackstone is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in South Korea. It’s located in Icheon, to the east of Kyung Gi province, around a 90-minute drive from downtown Seoul, where the terrain in this area is very hilly, with large stone outcrops punctuating the landscape.

Brian Costello of JMP Design designed the layout – he also created the Blackstone course on Jeju island four years earlier – and as the narrow, tree-lined fairways of the West, East and North nines are routed around a river and a number of small lakes it’s no surprise to find water coming into play regularly during a round here.

A stunning clubhouse anchors the development, the focal point for the 27-hole layout, where the feature holes on the North-West configuration comprise the 390-metre par four 4th hole on the North nine and the 226-metre par three 4th on the West nine.

The Ballantine’s Championship was held here between 2011 and 2013, and this short-lived European Tour event certainly put Blackstone on the golfing map. Lee Westwood won the first edition of the competition, with Bernd Wiesberger and Brett Rumford claiming the other two titles.