One of the lesser known but better quality courses in the Sichuan region of southwestern China, the Chengdu Wolong Valley golf course was designed by American Rick Jacobson and first opened for play in 2012. The layout is dominated by sand, and prior to our visit we were told there were as many as 400 traps across the course. While this figure is plainly untrue, there is enough sand for 400 bunkers as the traps built are enormous, and literally everywhere.

The great shame with Wolong Valley is that the obscene amount of sand tends to disguise what are otherwise nice, subtle golf shapes and holes. There are some interesting greens here and some effective strategy in amidst all the sand, but it is hard to identify because of the sheer size of the hazards. The bunkers themselves are rugged, well built and naturalistic in isolation, they are simply too prolific and spoilt conceptually by the fact that a course so full of sand looks anything but natural.

Putting the sand to one side, highlights include a number of crested landing areas, the small, shapely putting greens and some of the more intimate individual bunkers. Traps short of the long par three 17^th, for example, are unusually small for this course, but reasonably effective at framing the undersized, saddle green site.

While we believe that Wolong Valley is likely the pick of the Chengdu golf courses, it certainly could have been better with a little more restraint shown during design and construction.