Stunning Ballyshear Golf Links Experience In Bangkok

The Story Behind Ballyshear: A Lost Masterpiece Rebuilt in Thailand

Most golf courses borrow an idea from history. Ballyshear rebuilds one wholesale. To understand why architecture enthusiasts fly in from around the world for this course near Bangkok, it helps to know exactly what Gil Hanse and his team set out to do here — and why the result is genuinely unlike anything else in Southeast Asia.

What “Ballyshear” actually means

The name is not Thai and not marketing invention. “Ballyshear” was the name of the Long Island estate of Charles Blair Macdonald, the American amateur champion and architect regarded as the father of golf-course design in the United States. Macdonald, together with his associate Seth Raynor, built the original Lido Golf Club — the course Ballyshear pays tribute to. Naming the Thai club after Macdonald’s own home is a deliberate signal of exactly whose design philosophy is being honored here.

The most complete reconstruction of the lost Lido

The original Lido opened on Long Island in the late 1910s and was widely rated among the best courses in the world before it was lost — the land taken over by the U.S. Navy and the course destroyed for a naval base during the Second World War. For decades it existed only in old plans, photographs and legend. Ballyshear is one of the earliest full-scale attempts to bring that lost course back to life.

Rather than simply “borrowing a few famous holes,” Hanse and his team reproduced all 18 of the original Lido’s template holes and laid them out in nearly the same sequence as Macdonald and Raynor intended. According to the architects, sixteen of the holes follow the original Lido’s routing order almost exactly; only the second and sixth holes were swapped, to fit the boundaries of the Thai site. That fidelity to a century-old plan is what separates Ballyshear from the many courses that merely reference a Redan or a Biarritz in passing.

The design team — and building blind through a pandemic

The project was led by Gil Hanse alongside his long-time design partner Jim Wagner, with the shaping carried out by their in-house construction crew. There is one detail here that even keen golf-travel readers rarely know: because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, neither Hanse nor Wagner was able to visit the Thai site after late 2019. Much of the build was therefore directed remotely, with the on-the-ground shaping team translating the plans into the finished ground — an unusual way to deliver a course of this ambition. One notable exception to the pure Lido template set is the closing par-4 18th, which is modeled on an Alister MacKenzie hole rather than a Macdonald-Raynor template.

Built on Golf History: The Kiarti Thanee Site

Ballyshear did not appear on empty land. It occupies the site of the former Kiarti Thanee Country Club, an 18-hole course that operated on this spot from the late 1980s until it closed in 2017. When Ban Rakat Club redeveloped the land into Ballyshear, a large group of the original members — reported at more than 160 — carried their memberships across to the new club. So while the golf is brand-new, the location has been a Bangkok golf address for the best part of three decades.

What Playing Firm-and-Fast in the Tropics Really Means

Links golf is defined as much by ground conditions as by design. The whole point of the Lido templates — the run-offs, the blind carries, the angled greens — is that the ball is meant to bounce, run and be played along the ground, not just flown to a target. Hanse’s stated aim was to give Thai golfers something fresh: hard, fast, closely-manicured greens that reward the running shot.

That is a bold goal in this climate. Central Thailand is hot and humid, and the region is one of the more challenging places on earth to grow the lean, tight, links-style turf that firm-and-fast golf demands — very different from the sandy, temperate homes of traditional links. What this means for you as a visiting golfer is practical: on a dry, well-presented day the course can play fast and genuinely links-like, but after heavy rain — common in the wet months — the same holes play softer and more aerial. It is worth timing a visit for the drier stretch of the year (broadly the cooler, low-rainfall window from late in the calendar year into the first quarter) if experiencing the intended ground game matters to you. Always confirm current conditions and any recent weather with the club before you travel.

Access: This Is a Private Members’ Club

This is the single most important thing to understand before planning a round, and it is where many golf-travel guides are vague. Ballyshear is not a public pay-and-play course. It is the private course of Ban Rakat Club, primarily reserved for members and their guests. You cannot simply turn up at the gate and buy a tee time the way you can at many other Bangkok-area courses.

In practice, visiting golfers usually get on through one of two routes: as the personal guest of a member, or through a golf-travel operator that has an arrangement to secure confirmed tee times for outside players — often as part of a wider Bangkok golf itinerary. Because of that exclusivity, availability is limited and should be arranged well in advance rather than left to chance. Green fees for guest access sit at the premium end for the Bangkok region and vary by season and day of the week; treat any figure you see online as indicative only and verify the current rate and access terms directly with the operator or club at the time of booking. (verify at operator site)

On-course practicalities

• Caddies: As at essentially every course in Thailand, caddies are standard and part of the experience. Because Ballyshear is new and unusual in its design, local course knowledge among caddies can vary — do not assume your caddie will read every template green for you, and study the more deceptive holes yourself.
• Carts vs. walking: Buggies are available, but the routing and the nature of a links-style layout mean parts of the course reward walking, and a cart cannot always follow the ideal line to your ball. Factor this in if you have mobility considerations.
• Rentals: Clubs, shoes and umbrellas are available to rent, which makes Ballyshear feasible for travelers arriving without their own bag. Confirm availability and current prices when you book.
• Dress and etiquette: As a private club with an international reputation, expect standard collared-shirt golf-club dress and a higher expectation of etiquette than at a casual public course. If you are new to Thai course customs, our Thailand golf hub and etiquette guide are worth a read before you play.

How Ballyshear fits a Bangkok golf trip

Because access takes planning and the design is a specialist draw, Ballyshear works best as the centerpiece of a Bangkok golf trip rather than a spur-of-the-moment round. Pair it with the city’s more openly bookable courses to build a varied few days — see our Bangkok golf courses guide for the full picture, and the Thailand golf travel hub for planning your wider itinerary, seasons and logistics. For golf-architecture enthusiasts, a round here is less a casual game and more a chance to walk a faithful, full-scale reconstruction of one of the great lost courses in the history of the game — something you cannot do anywhere else in the region.