More than half the nation’s seventy-six provinces are located in Northern Thailand, where this region shares a border with Myanmar to the northwest and with Laos to the northeast. It’s an expansive area that’s characterised by a landscape of densely forested mountains and a number of indigenous hill tribes still live here, each with its own language and culture.

Golf is quite thin on the ground in this region but the quality is very good so we now feature a Top 10 chart for Northern Thailand. Many of the top-rated tracks are clustered around the ancient cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, close to Myanmar, with the Robert Trent Jones Jnr course at Santiburi Country Club and the Schmidt-Curley design at Chiangmai Highlands acknowledged as the best two in this locality.

Further east, on the other side of the Phetchabun Mountains, lies the Isaan region and its premier layout is Singha Park Khon Kaen, set out on the site of the Singha Beer company’s old wastewater disposal plant. Three hundred kilometres southwest of here, only a 3-hour drive from the capital, Toscana Valley is the best of a small bunch of closely grouped golf facilities in the province of Nakhon Ratchasima.