Spring City (Lake) - China

The Spring City resort is awesome! It’s simply a beautiful place, extremely well run and offering wonderful service throughout. Honestly, not what I expected to find on my first trip to China. I’d venture to say they get everything right. As for the golf, it’s excellent as well. Set on the side of a mountain with a huge lake at the bottom, the course enjoys lake views from every single hole. The architecture is solid but very American Parkland in type. There are many fun holes but few I would classify as spectacular except the par 3, 8th. Which is a drop shot par 3 playing down to the water from some 30 meters above to a green half surrounded by the blue of the lake. Fun hole and challenging club selection.

It’s fun golf at a great resort in a place I would not of expected to find. My advice is to stay here, play the Lake and Mountain Courses a few times and take a day or two to go up and visit and play Stone Forest Golf Club less than an hour away. The combination would make a perfect albeit exotic golf vacation.

Sitting 2,000 meters (6,500 ft.) above sea level, the Lake course at Spring City Golf & Lake Resort has a year-round spring-like climate with a huge and beautiful lake creating a perfect backdrop. The course is designed to accentuate the delicate beauty and tranquility of the surrounding natural landscape. Preserving the pine trees, rocky outcrops and undulating terrain, the course allows players to enjoy beautiful nature first hand. At the same time, it is a very challenging course unlike typical golf resorts with easy layouts and slow greens. All 18 holes provide good views of the lake. Because the course is laid out on a slope leading up from the lake, the holes 1-9 descend step by step toward the lake below. The front nine has a 150-yard elevation drop from Hole 1 on the hill to Hole 9 by the lake side and then holes 10-18 ascend step by step. There is bush either right or left on all 18 holes with a cliff on the opposite side. Missing the generally narrow fairways will often mean having to play another ball. Overall it best suits advanced players but the great views and landscaping are guaranteed to please all golfers.

The steep downhill par 3 172-yard 8th is the signature hole with the green 30 meters (100 ft.) lower than the tee. The narrow green is bordered by water along the right and rear. This is a difficult club selection hole. The relatively short par 5 468-yard 9th has a narrow fairway guarded by water on the right and rugged rock cliffs on the left. A long hitter can reach the green in 2 but water on three sides of the green will make this a risky option. The view of this hole from behind the green is fantastic. My favorite is a gentle dogleg to the left par 4 428-yard 13th. You can drive hard due to a wide fairway, but the approach shot must be accurate because the left half of the green runs into a cliff falling to the lake below. The beauty of the uniquely shaped green and the lake behind it seen on your second shot is really spectacular. To read more about the Lake course at Spring City Golf & Lake Resort, click here to visit my website.