Gunung Raya Golf Resort

Overview: Gunung Raya Golf Resort occupies the foothills of Gunung Raya on Langkawi Island, with an 18-hole par-72 course laid across former rubber plantation land. Current destination information gives 6,228 metres from the championship tees, approximately 6,811 yards, and credits Max Wexler. The course moves through rolling ground with mountain and rainforest views, using elevated tees, fairway contours, sand and water to vary the round. It is a resort-style layout whose visual appeal comes from the island's topography as much as from individual hazards.

History: Gunung Raya opened for play in 1998 and became part of Langkawi's golf-tourism offer alongside the island's other resort course at Teluk Datai. The documented design attribution is to Max Wexler, and the course has been used for significant amateur tournaments. Its identity remains tied to the 300-acre plantation setting below the mountain, where the existing slopes supply the foundation for the routing rather than being flattened into a conventional lowland resort course.

Did You Know? The course's strongest change of scene comes late in the round. The fifteenth begins a closing stretch that includes a downhill par three, the seventeenth, where the tee shot requires a carry toward the Andaman Sea. The tenth is a long par five with water running along the left, while the closing eighteenth climbs uphill to a green protected by bunkers. Those holes show how Gunung Raya uses elevation, coastline and water in separate stages.