A 36-hole Korean-style park golf course will be built in Haikou, in China's Hainan Province. It marks the first case in which a Korean park golf company has used an existing Chinese golf facility to create a large-scale park golf complex capable of hosting both recreational and professional play.
K Park Golf said on the 9th that it has begun an official design project to convert the 18 holes of the No. 8 par-3 course at Mission Hills Resort in Haikou, Hainan Province, into a 36-hole park golf course.
The project is distinctive in that it reconfigures the site into a park golf course while making maximum use of the terrain and facilities of the existing par-3 course. The new 36 holes will be divided into 18 recreational holes and 18 professional holes. The recreational course is designed at par 66 and the professional course at par 72. The recreational layout follows the rules of the Korea Park Golf Association, while the professional layout follows those of the Korea Professional Park Golf Association.
K Park Golf is handling the integrated design, including course design and site layout as well as renderings, safety and planting plans, and facility and materials plans. The company is working toward an opening in December this year.
"This Mission Hills project is not simply a design contract but the first case in which park golf experience accumulated in Korea is being realized in an actual space in China," K Park Golf Chief Executive Jeon Young-chang said. "We will create a new park golf course model that can accommodate both recreational and professional competition."
K Park Golf plans to use the project as a bridgehead for entering the Chinese market. Going forward, the company intends to expand its business beyond park golf course design into facility and materials supply, course operation, tournament hosting, education and sports tourism in China and other overseas markets.
