Blue Canyon Country Club (Canyon)

Overview: The Canyon Course at Blue Canyon is a par-72, 18-hole layout in Phuket, routed through the remains of an abandoned tin mine and the surrounding rubber plantations. Japanese architect Yoshikazu Kato used the existing landform with a light touch, leaving exposed rock, wooded slopes, freshwater features and sharp changes of level as active parts of the strategy. The club’s course page headline lists 7,179 yards, a figure also repeated by established course references, although a separate tee table on the same page shows a different black-tee total. That published discrepancy is worth noting when comparing scorecards.

History: Blue Canyon’s Canyon Course was unveiled in 1991 as the first of the club’s two 18-hole layouts. Its tournament history grew quickly, with the Johnnie Walker Classic held here in 1994, 1998 and 2007, alongside the Honda Invitational, Thailand Open and other international events. The separate Lakes Course followed in 1999. Together, the two routings established Blue Canyon as a major golf destination in Phuket, but the Canyon remains the course most closely associated with the club’s original identity.

Did You Know? The par-4 13th is widely known as the Tiger Hole because Tiger Woods drove the green during the 1998 Johnnie Walker Classic. The hole measures about 390 yards from the championship markers and asks players to take on the canyon line rather than simply steer around it. That moment helped turn an already dramatic hole into one of the most recognisable pieces of golf architecture in Thailand.