Sukitti Klangvisai

Sukitti Klangvisai is a Thai golf course architect. English-language sources usually give him the title Dr. Sukitti Klangvisai, and the spelling varies from one to the next — Sukitt Klangvisai, Sukitti Klangvisay. From the end of the 1980s into the 2000s he built courses across Thailand. The earliest of his important works is Phuket Country Club, in the middle of Phuket island. It opened in 1989, and is described as the first course of championship standard on Phuket.

Phuket Country Club was built on a worked-out tin mine. Phuket has been known for tin since the 19th century, and many of the island’s golf courses occupy former mining ground. Klangvisai took the flooded hollows left behind when the digging stopped and used them as they were, as lakes, setting the holes along the limestone cliffs and the broken ground that remained. Rather than smooth away the history of the site, he used what was there — an approach that runs through the work that followed.

1993 brought three courses in quick succession: Loch Palm Golf Club, also on Phuket, Thanya Golf Club in Pathum Thani province on the northern edge of Bangkok, and Majestic Creek Country Club outside Hua Hin. Loch Palm is another tin-mine site, and Crystal Lake, which lies across the middle of the course, is said to be the largest stretch of water on any golf course on Phuket. The front nine threads between the lake and the palms, the back nine climbs and drops on the hill side. Majestic Creek spreads 27 holes over rising ground with the mountains of the Myanmar border behind it, and uses the stream that crosses the site as a hazard just as it runs. Thanya Golf Club is 27 holes, three nines on flat land, and there water is in play on very nearly every hole.

His work of the 2000s is Rachakram Golf Club at Bang Sai in Ayutthaya province. It opened in December 2006, a par 72 of about 7,127 yards from the back tees. Par 3s of differing lengths are set against par 5s that all measure over 500 yards, and blind lakes wait in a number of places. It is floodlit for evening play, and is known as one of the courses around Bangkok where a late round is possible.

GoGolf lists three courses of Klangvisai’s, and all three can be booked through GoGolf: Rachakram Golf Club and Thanya Golf Club, both within driving distance of Bangkok, and Loch Palm Golf Club on Phuket. On each of them how you cross the water, or avoid it, decides the score — the architect’s hand is plain to see.

Klangvisai courses you can book on GoGolf

• Rachakram Golf Club (Ayutthaya, Thailand) — opened December 2006. A par 72 of about 7,127 yards, with floodlights
• Thanya Golf Club (Pathum Thani, Thailand) — 27 holes on flat land. Fully renovated in 2012. Formerly Thanya Country Club
• Loch Palm Golf Club (Phuket, Thailand) — 18 holes built around Crystal Lake, on the site of a former tin mine

Tee times and rates for a given day can be checked on each course page or in the GoGolf app.

See the other golf course architects here.