Thana City Country Club — still searched for by most travelling golfers under its old name, Thana City Golf Club — fills an unusually practical niche in Bangkok golf. It is billed by the club, its on-site hotel and the major tour operators as the only course in Thailand designed by Greg Norman, and it sits on the Bang Na-Trat corridor a short hop from Suvarnabhumi Airport. Comprehensively redeveloped in the 2010s and relaunched with a resort hotel in 2018, it is less a marquee destination than the smartest first or last round of a Thailand golf trip — with genuine 1990s tournament history underneath.
This profile covers the Norman design and what the redevelopment changed, the tournament record (Ernie Els features), the holes that decide your score, how close the airport really is, and who should book it — or skip it.
The course itself
Greg Norman laid out Thana City in 1993, at the height of Bangkok’s golf-and-real-estate boom, as the centrepiece of a large mixed-use development off the Bang Na-Trat highway in Samut Prakan. The club’s own material describes it as the one and only course in Thailand originally designed by the Great White Shark — a claim repeated by its hotel partner and by every major operator selling the course, and one we have found no counter-example to. It is a par-72 layout that the club says was stretched to 7,008 yards in its renovation “as a preparation for hosting world-class professional tournaments”; other published figures run from 6,905 on Norman’s own design-company page to 6,930 for the 2013 tournament setup and 6,966 on the resort’s and the directories’ listings, so treat the length as approximately 7,000 depending on setup.
The character is classic flat-land Bangkok golf, done with more wit than most. The terrain is gently undulating at most and easy to walk, and water is the whole story: the club’s hole notes call the 16th “the only hole on the course without water”. Norman’s defence is lateral lakes and streams, high-lipped bunkering around the greens, and fairways of decent width that tighten as you approach the putting surfaces. The club also claims “one of the best course drainage systems in Bangkok”, which matters more than it sounds in the May–October wet season. In an earlier era the club housed a David Leadbetter academy.
The ownership-and-name history is worth untangling, because you will see three names for the same course. It operated for years as Thana City Golf & Sports Club (also listed as Thana City Golf & Country Club), then the whole estate was redeveloped — sources describe major works through the 2010s, completed around 2018 — and rebranded as Thana City Country Club. The 194-room Eastin Thana City Golf Resort Bangkok opened on the property in December 2018 under Absolute Hotel Services, and as of 2026 the club’s site states it is managed by the same group’s Absolute Golf Services.
Tournament pedigree
Thana City’s moment on the world stage came with the Johnnie Walker Super Tour, an eight-man, four-round exhibition series played across Asia in the European Tour off-season. In 1996 the final round was staged at Thana City, where Ian Woosnam clawed back Ernie Els’s lead to force a tie after 72 holes — Els then won with a par on the first hole of sudden death.
The national open has been here too. The club had a busy 1990s: Laura Davies won the Thailand Ladies Open here in 1994 and the women returned in 1995; the men’s Thailand Open followed in 1997, won by Christian Chernock, and again in 1998, when James Kingston beat Jeev Milkha Singh at the first extra hole. The national open came back in March 2013, by then a OneAsia event co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour: Prayad Marksaeng won on 264 (−24), two clear of Australia’s Scott Strange. Tour-operator records also credit Thana City with the 1993 Thailand Open, though that earliest edition’s venue is harder to confirm. Either way, this is a course with a real professional record in two separate eras — a busy run of tournaments in the 1990s, then the national open again in 2013 — which few Bangkok-area clubs can say.
The holes worth knowing
The club publishes named hole-by-hole notes, and several are genuinely useful for a first visit:
- 1st, “The Beginner” — the longest hole on the course to open the round. A par here is a good handshake; don’t chase more.
- 3rd, “Falcon Fire” — a short par 3 over water where the bail-out right leaves a nervy pitch back to a green sloping toward the hazard.
- 9th, “Green on the Island” — water left of the fairway, across it, left of the green and behind it. The club’s advice is to drive down the right for the best angle in.
- 14th, “Secret Valley” — rated the most difficult hole on the course: a risk/reward two-shot gamble to a narrow-fronted green, with a lay-up route for the sensible.
- 16th, “Cranbury Club” — the one dry hole, so swing freely; the green slopes left-to-right toward two bunkers.
- 18th, “U Shape” — water runs the full length of the fairway before a testing approach to a small, bunkered island green. The club’s notes concede that par here “is a very acceptable score”.
Location and getting there
The club sits at kilometre 14 of the Bang Na-Trat highway (100/1 Bang Na-Trat Frontage Rd, Bang Chalong, Bang Phli District, Samut Prakan), southeast of central Bangkok. Its calling card is Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK): the on-site Eastin resort advertises a ten-minute transfer, while golf-travel operators quote a more realistic 20–30 minutes depending on traffic. Either way it belongs to the small group of quality courses closest to BKK, which makes it a natural pick for a long layover, a first-morning round after a red-eye, or a final 18 before an evening flight. Downtown Bangkok is around 25 minutes away by expressway outside rush hour — count on more at peak times.
Practical notes
Caddies are part of the round here, as at virtually every Thai club — our guide to how caddies work in Thailand covers fees and tipping etiquette. Carts are available, but the flat, compact routing is comfortably walkable if you prefer. The club runs refreshment kiosks at the 4th, 7th, 14th and 16th holes and publicises a pace-of-play commitment of 4 hours 26 minutes — a small thing, but a telling one on Bangkok’s busy weekend tee sheets. Thana City is not a full floodlit night-golf venue in the Summit Windmill mould, but it is not daylight-only either: the club’s own rate pages have advertised nine-hole twilight golf with complimentary floodlight until 19:30, and it still sells twilight tee times as late as 4:30pm. If a late finish under lights matters to you, confirm the lighting is running when you book (verify).
On cost, Thana City sits in the middle of the Bangkok market: clearly below the city’s marquee tournament venues, above the municipal-style bargains, with weekend mornings priced well ahead of weekday and twilight slots (verify current rates with the club before booking). Green conditions and heat both favour early tee times for most of the year — see our guide to the best time of year for golf in Thailand before you fix dates.
Is it right for your trip?
Play Thana City if the airport-corridor logic fits your itinerary, if you want a well-drained, walkable course with real width for mid and high handicappers, or if the Norman name and the Els-and-Woosnam footnote appeal to the golf historian in you. It is honest, water-guarded parkland golf with better bones than its price bracket suggests.
Skip it if you are hunting drama: the land is flat, and Bangkok’s east side offers stiffer tests. Thai Country Club, further out along the same Bang Na-Trat corridor, is the polished tournament heavyweight; Ballyshear Golf Links, also near Suvarnabhumi, is the modern architecture pilgrimage; and Nikanti Golf Club is the pick if you want a contemporary all-inclusive day out. Against those, Thana City is the value-and-convenience play, not the trophy round.
For the wider picture — how the airport-side clubs fit into a week of city golf — start with our Bangkok golf guide, then zoom out to the full Golf in Thailand hub to build the rest of the trip around it.