The largest and most populous continent in the world, Asia covers around one third of the land area on Earth. More than half of all the people on the planet – approximately four and a half billion individuals – reside within a vast continent that’s bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Indian Ocean to the south and the continent of Europe to the west. Reference books include Middle Eastern countries within Asia but we keep a separate section for golfing nations located in that western region of the continent. Similarly, Russia and Turkey, which straddle the Europe-Asia frontier, are listed within our Continental European golf course rankings.

China is by far the largest country within our geographical definition of Asia and we profile sixty of its best courses, a number of which are located offshore, on Hainan Island. In addition to these top tracks, we also maintain ranking lists for layouts in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Further to the east, courses in South Korea and Japan are both heavily featured, with a Top 50 and a Top 80, respectively, whilst a further 3,000 kilometres to the south, you’ll find a Top 30 listing for golf facilities in the Philippines.

Further south again, in the heart of southeast Asia, all the recognised golfing centres are endowed with national ranking charts. In the maritime region, Indonesia boasts a Top 30 table, Singapore a Top 10 and Malaysia a Top 40. On the mainland, Vietnam enjoys a Top 30 chart whilst we also promote a Top 50 for the popular tourist destination of Thailand. Travelling westwards, we highlight some of the best golfing tracks to be found in the cricket and hockey-mad nation of India and the twenty layouts listed for that country brings the total number of golf courses appearing within our Asian section to over 250.

An interesting statistic to emerge from the R&A report entitled “Golf around the World 2015” was that there were 244 military courses in Asia, with most of them located in India, Thailand, Pakistan and South Korea. The follow up report, named "Golf around the World 2017", indicated 67 of 176 planned new facilities were under construction at the end of 2016. Edition 3 of the report, titled “Golf around the World 2019”, listed the Top 5 countries by number of courses as 1) Japan (3,169), 2) South Korea (798), 3) China (599), 4) Thailand (315), 5) India (294). To see the full reports, click this R&A link then download the appropriate free publications.

Our Top 100 Golf Courses of Asia rankings were updated in May 2020. Click the link to read the story.