Weihai Point

Laid out on top of a narrow peninsula that juts out one and a half miles into the Yellow Sea, the golf facility at Weihai Point Resort was known up until 2007 as Pan China Golf Club.

New developers, recognising that an engineering company with no experience of constructing golf courses had originally built the existing course, brought in Golfplan to virtually recreate the layout.

Eighteen month later – having blasted more than a quarter million cubic meters of rock and soil from the centre of the property, sand capped all the fairways and preserved all the pine trees on the site – the new layout was ready for play.

Extending to a modest (and sensible) 6,235 yards, the resort course at Weihai Point now features a wonderful set of holes with an array of new steep-faced bunkers dotted around the fairways and greensites.

Especially pleasing are the greens – some placid, others boldly contoured, some shallow and raised, others lie of the land – and many of the new putting surfaces have been relocated close to the water’s edge, enhancing their dramatic impact.

One of the more indelible passages of play occurs late in the round at the left doglegged 16th, where a 200-yard carry off the tee is required en route to a green that sits by the side of the sea, surrounded by six bunkers. Par scores of 5 on the scorecard at this fabulous hole are much appreciated.