This one was my favourite of the trip. I love a full links experience, and Hoiana Shores delivered it — genuine dunes, native grasses, and barely a tree in sight. The clubhouse was my favourite too, built in an American Colonial style that reminded me of Shinnecock Hills.
It's a Robert Trent Jones II design, and it's regarded as Vietnam's first true championship links course — it picked up World's Best New Golf Course at the 2020 World Golf Awards. Nice touch: the pins are topped with little lanterns instead of flags, a nod to Hoi An just up the coast. Once again it was a scorcher of a day — bring plenty of water, and an ice towel around the neck genuinely helps. Awesome course, and different again from everything else we played.
Looking back at the three courses in order, it went parkland (Ba Na Hills), to a parkland/links mix (Laguna Golf Lang Co), to full links here at Hoiana Shores. Of the three, we actually rated Ba Na Hills as the toughest test.
None of the courses we played were ever crowded. On snakes, we only saw one the entire trip — but it was enough to spook one of the boys, who suddenly had flashbacks to a movie called Snakes on a Plane.
The caddies here were more than happy to go stomping through the rough hunting for a lost ball, and they were very good at finding them. And like every course on this trip, the clubhouse food was great.