Dalat Palace Golf Club Review 2026: Vietnam’s Oldest Course, Tested at 1,500 Meters

Dalat Palace Golf Club is the closest thing Vietnam has to a golf museum you can still book a tee time at — a layout that traces back to 1922 and carries the personal fingerprint of Emperor Bao Dai, who expanded it into a private royal course in the early 1930s after learning the game on trips to France. I played it in the cool, pine-scented air at 1,500 meters above sea level, where Ho Chi Minh City’s 35°C heat index feels like a different country entirely. This review covers the real history, the current 18-hole specs, and whether a century of closures, revivals, and one DHL co-founder’s bank account left the course worth the drive up from the coast.

Dalat Palace Golf Club At a Glance

Course Design & Layout: A 1922 Course That Refused to Die

The course’s story starts earlier than almost anything else I’ve covered on this site. Architect E. Hébrard included a golf ground in his 1923 city plan for Dalat, and a small 6-hole course with a modest clubhouse went in during the early 1930s. Bao Dai — Vietnam’s last emperor — is the reason it became a real course rather than a colonial curiosity: after discovering golf on trips to France, he backed the build-out on the site Hébrard had already zoned for it. Several golf-history archives credit the original routing to English architects Harry Colt and Charles Alison, the same design partnership behind a long list of early-20th-century courses across Europe and Asia — I couldn’t find that credit confirmed on the club’s own site, so treat it as well-sourced but not officially stamped.

What happened next is the part most reviews skip. The course was abandoned in 1945 when Bao Dai left for Hong Kong. It came back in 1954 under Dr. Hach and Ferdinand d’Or as an 8-hole layout — hole 8 was played twice, from different tees, to stretch it into a round. It closed again in 1975. It sat unused until American businessman Larry Hillblom, a co-founder of DHL, funded its revival in the early 1990s and backed a multi-million-dollar restoration that started in 1994 and produced the current 18-hole, par-72 championship routing.

The Greens & Conditioning at 1,500 Meters

Dalat Palace runs bentgrass greens and fairways, which several operators describe as among the only bentgrass surfaces in Southeast Asia’s tropical belt — cool-season grass simply doesn’t survive Vietnam’s coastal heat and humidity the way it does up here. The elevation is doing the agronomy work that irrigation budgets do everywhere else: daytime highs in the low-to-mid 20s°C year-round mean the greens stay firmer and truer for longer stretches of the day than anything I’ve played in Da Nang or Nha Trang. The trade-off is thinner air and cooler mornings — bring a layer for a 6 AM tee time even in the dry season.

72 bunkers are spread across the property and lakes come into play on 10 of the 18 holes, which is a genuinely high number for a Vietnamese course — most of what I’ve reviewed on the coast tops out at 3 or 4 water holes.

There’s a conservation angle here that doesn’t get mentioned in most write-ups. The property sits in the watershed above Xuan Huong Lake, and the pine forest lining the fairways isn’t just scenery — it’s part of the buffer that keeps runoff out of the lake that defines Dalat’s city center. A course this old, on this kind of slope, is either managed carefully or it silts up the lake below it within a generation. I didn’t find a published environmental report from the club confirming their runoff management practices, which is a gap I’d like to see closed, but the standing pine cover itself is a decent proxy for how seriously the site has been maintained across a century of ownership changes.

Getting to the Course

Lien Khuong Airport (DLI) is the gateway, roughly 30 km south of Dalat city center with domestic connections from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Budget 30–40 minutes by car from the airport to the course — most sources land on 40 minutes as the realistic number once you account for the mountain road’s switchbacks rather than a flat-highway estimate. The club itself sits close to Dalat’s colonial-era hotel district, so pairing a round here with a night or two in the old town isn’t a detour, it’s the natural itinerary.

What’s Left to Verify

I’m flagging this section on purpose rather than smoothing it over. Three specific numbers on this page carry real uncertainty: the back-tee yardage (6,596 per the club’s factsheet versus roughly 7,000 on at least one third-party booking site), the original 1922 design credit (widely repeated across golf archives but not confirmed on the club’s own materials), and green fees (not published by the club at all, only by resellers). None of that changes my read on whether the course is worth playing — it does mean you should treat the specific dollar figures and yardage as a planning range, confirmed with the club directly, rather than a locked quote.

The Par-3 Stretch & Signature Water Holes

Dalat Palace’s par-3s run from a manageable 164 yards up to a genuinely demanding 234 yards from the tips — a wider spread than most 18-hole cards in Vietnam, which tells you the routing isn’t just recycling the same mid-iron shot four times. Combined with water on 10 holes and stately pine corridors lining most fairways, the front-to-back variety is the course’s real strength over raw length. I didn’t find a published hole-by-hole yardage chart from the club itself, so I’m not going to invent specific hole numbers here — ask the starter for the yardage book at check-in and you’ll get the full breakdown before your tee time.

Practice Facilities

Clubhouse & 19th Hole

The clubhouse sits on Tran Nhan Tong street, a short drive from Dalat’s own colonial-era hotel district, and rental services cover clubs, shoes, and bag storage if you’re traveling light. I’ll be straight with you: I couldn’t verify a detailed food-and-beverage menu or pricing for the clubhouse restaurant itself, so I’m not going to invent dish names and prices the way I would for a Da Nang course where I’ve eaten the meal. What I can tell you is that Dalat as a city runs on its own produce — strawberries, artichoke tea, avocado, and mountain-grown coffee — and that regional identity shows up on menus across the city, clubhouse included.

There’s a personal layer to this one for me. My parents left Vietnam from the coast, not the highlands, so Dalat’s pine forests and cool mornings don’t match the Vietnam either of them describes from memory — it’s closer to the Northern California hill towns I grew up near than to the Da Nang heat I write about on most of this site. Playing a round built by a Vietnamese emperor who’d just discovered the game in France, on a course an American businessman later saved from ruin, is about as Viet-American a golf story as I’ve found in this country.

Green Fee Breakdown

The club’s own factsheet doesn’t publish green fees, so the numbers below come from third-party Vietnam golf tour operators as of my research — treat them as a planning range, not a quote, and confirm directly with the club or a booking agent before you travel.

That guest-rate gap between roughly $59 and $103 for the same 18 holes is real and worth planning around — VND-to-USD conversions and member/guest tiers shift by booking channel, so I’m giving you the range I found rather than pretending there’s one fixed number.

Best Time to Play

Dalat’s nickname, the “City of Eternal Spring,” undersells how much the golf experience actually shifts by season — a January round in a fleece vest and a July round dodging a 3 PM downpour are two different trips to the same 18 holes.

How to Book

Book directly through the club for the most reliable member/guest rate breakdown, or check Da Lat activities on Klook or Da Lat experiences on GetYourGuide for bundled tee-time-plus-transfer packages when they’re available — neither platform currently lists a dedicated Dalat Palace golf package as far as I could verify, so treat those as general Da Lat activity search links rather than a confirmed golf booking, and always cross-check pricing against the club directly.

FAQ

How old is Dalat Palace Golf Club?

The site dates to a 1922 city plan, with a small course built in the early 1930s under Emperor Bao Dai. It’s been closed and revived twice since — most recently rebuilt into its current 18-hole layout in a 1994 restoration — which makes it one of Vietnam’s oldest golf sites even though the course you’ll actually play is 30-plus years old in its current form.

Do I need a caddy at Dalat Palace?

Yes. Caddies are required, standard at one per golfer, with one caddie shared between two guests permitted during peak season. Tee-off intervals run every 10 minutes, tighter than most Vietnamese courses.

How much are green fees at this course?

Based on third-party operator listings rather than the club’s own published rates, expect roughly $59 for member weekday rates up to around $103 for visitor weekday rates, plus separate cart and rental fees. Confirm current pricing directly before booking — the club doesn’t publish green fees on its own site.

What’s the weather like for golf in Dalat?

Cool and dry from November through March (16–24°C), which is peak season. June through August brings afternoon rain and heavy domestic tourist crowds escaping the coastal heat elsewhere in Vietnam.

Is the course walkable, or do I need a cart?

The club’s own materials don’t specify a walking policy, and given the elevation changes across the property, I’d budget for a cart (~$25) unless you know from experience you handle hilly rounds well at altitude.

Dave’s Final Verdict

This course earns its spot on this site on history alone, but the golf holds up too — bentgrass greens you won’t find on most Vietnamese scorecards, water in play on more than half the holes, and a cool-climate round that resets your body clock after a week on the coast. The unresolved parts — unpublished green fees, a yardage discrepancy between the club and third-party listings, no confirmed hole-by-hole card — are gaps in public information, not red flags about the course itself.

If you’re building a Nha Trang golf trip or working through my list of the best golf courses in Vietnam, this is the detour worth adding for the history alone, and the golf backs it up. For the practical side of the trip, my caddy guide and Vietnam golf cost breakdown cover what you’ll need to budget beyond the green fee, and my best time to golf in Vietnam guide has the full seasonal picture if Dalat’s highland climate has you rethinking the rest of your itinerary.

Sources: official club history, official course factsheet, Bao Dai on Wikipedia, and third-party Vietnam golf tour operator listings for green fee ranges not published by the club.