Burapha is the club a Pattaya golf trip uses to buy volume. Inland from the beach, in the low hills of Si Racha, it is a true 36-hole property: four nines off one clubhouse, paired into two par-72 courses that play nothing like each other. One half is flat and friendly, the other climbs to the best view in the area. There is real tour history, greens visitors rate, and a price below the region’s showpieces.
Below: which nines make which course and what each plays to, who built it, the holes worth knowing, the airport drives, and the caddie and buggy rules.
The course itself
The four nines are lettered A, B, C and D, each a par 36. A plus B is the East course; C plus D is the West, both par 72 — the one thing every source agrees on. The names are less settled: GolfSavers and Where2Golf call the nines American Wood, British Links, Crystal Spring (Where2Golf: Crystal) and Dune; golfdigg, PattayaGolfCourses and Golf Tours Thailand list Augusta, Belfry, Cypress and Dune. Only Dune appears in both, and the club’s own website is a bare skeleton that names no nines, so we cannot settle it. Tee sheets and caddies use the letters — book by letter.
The design is credited to the American architect Gary Panks with David Graham, the Australian who won both the US Open and the PGA Championship. Most references date the golf to 1993, GolfPass listing 1993 for East and West alike; Thai-Ger Line Golf and Golf Tours Thailand say 1995, and the club’s own site says established 1996. Nothing supports the two 18s opening in different years, so treat it as one build of 36 holes.
Yardages get misreported at a club this size. GolfPass and PattayaGolfCourses publish the same card, tee for tee:
| Course | Nines | Par | Tournament | Championship | Regular | Ladies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | A + B | 72 | 7,185 | 6,713 | 6,218 | 5,451 |
| West | C + D | 72 | 7,081 | 6,542 | 6,068 | 5,469 |
The same card rates the East 74.6/141 off the tournament tees, the West 73.4/136. Rival totals circulate — 6,948 and 6,828 (Golfasian), 7,276 and 7,143 (GolfLux) — pointing to re-measured or added tees. Working version: about 6,500 yards from the everyday markers, over 7,000 from the tips; check which set your booking quotes.
East course: A and B
The East is the flat one, and the one to hand an improving golfer: tree-lined and open parkland over gently undulating ground, a few slopes to climb, high tees that keep giving you a view (Where2Golf). Fairways are wide enough to let you score, the par 3s reachable, the par 5s carrying the difficulty, and GolfSavers reports greens running true and fast. On the card, A runs par 5, par 3, par 5 at its 5th to 7th; B closes on a par 5.
West course: C and D
The West is why better players come. C is the gentler half — lightly tree-lined, water on several holes, a lead-in rather than a test — before D climbs to the property’s highest ground. Thai coverage calls C–D hillside golf on sloping fairways, harder than the East. Robert Fagan’s review for The A Position calls it “not particularly long at just over 6,800 yards from the tips” and grades it a B, above average but a notch below the area’s best, The warning worth heeding: grainy greens, very fast from back to front — keep approaches below the hole.
Tournament pedigree
Burapha hosted the 2010 Thailand Open, then a OneAsia Tour event, won by China’s Liang Wenchong on 270, 18 under, a shot clear of Michael Wright and Namchok Tantipokhakul. Accounts differ on which 18 was used: Where2Golf logs it on the East, Fagan credits the West’s par-3 17th as the championship’s hardest hole. The regional record is steadier: Pattaya Mail reported the 2013 Singha Pattaya Open here, won by Kwanchai Tannin by six shots on 18-under 270. Travel sites list more that we could not verify.
The holes worth knowing
Everything memorable sits on D, the Dune nine — the reason to take the West.
- The high ground, around D’s 6th and 7th. The top of the property: a panorama over Pattaya’s towers, the cranes of Laem Chabang, the Gulf and the offshore islands (Where2Golf, Golfasian).
- The 16th of the West (D7), par 4. Reachable, with a tiny green set between two huge cavernous bunkers in Fagan’s description. Pick a target, not a club.
- The 17th (D8), par 3. The signature hole by Thai golf media’s reckoning: raised tee, green far below, enough drop to make distance control guesswork. Fagan lists it at 236 yards.
- The 10th (D1), par 5. Water left, trees and bunkers right, a cross-hazard, and a raised, well-bunkered green: the West asks questions straight after the turn.
- The finish. Thai coverage nicknames the West’s last three holes an “Amen Corner” of its own: benign-looking, downhill to the clubhouse, forever catching players with too much club.
Location and getting there
The club is in Si Racha district, Chonburi — inland off Motorway 7, in the hills behind the Laem Chabang deep-sea port, not on the coast. Published distances from Pattaya run 24 to 30 km, drive times 30 to 45 minutes (Where2Golf, GolfLux, Golfasian, PattayaGolfCourses); budget 40 minutes, more in the morning, since the approach roads also serve the port. The turn is off Motorway 7 past the Laem Chabang intersection near the km 32 marker, signed for Ban Nong Khae and Ban Bo Win; sources put the gate 5 or 11 km beyond it.
From Suvarnabhumi (BKK) the run is clean: Motorway 7 leaves Bangkok for Pattaya and the club sits short of the city. Published distances range from 79 to about 110 km, straight line versus road; plan on roughly 90 minutes outside peak hours (verify). Don Mueang (DMK) is on the far northern side of Bangkok, so the trip starts with a cross-city crawl: allow appreciably longer, and no first-morning tee times. U-Tapao (UTP) — officially U-Tapao–Rayong–Pattaya International — is the resort’s nearest gateway, but it lies about 50 km south of Pattaya while the club is north of it, so allow an hour or so; one listing’s 41 km cannot be a road distance.
Practical notes
A caddie is compulsory, as at almost every Thai club, and several booking sources list buggies as compulsory too, so this is not a walking course; on the West’s slopes you will not mind. If Thai caddies are new to you, read our guide to Thai caddies, etiquette and tipping; the caddies here are what reviewers praise most.
It gets busy. GolfSavers warns of heavy weekend crowds and slow play, so aim for a weekday and an early tee time; Thailand Golfers lists booking a day ahead midweek, two for weekends. The clubhouse was long the weak point — adequate but could use an upgrade, in GolfSavers’ words — though 2026 visitor reviews report it refurbished, so expect somewhere between the two. There is accommodation on site, which makes a 36-hole day easy. golfdigg’s listing asks golfers to leave the t-shirts, jeans and sandals at the hotel.
On price it sits mid-market for the Pattaya area, below the premium tier, and the value reputation broadly holds: two full 18s, caddie and cart, greens that generally deliver. It is not the cheapest golf nearby any more, though — GolfSavers calls it great value and flags its rates as high against other local options in the same breath. Rates shift with season, tee time and channel, so treat online figures as indicative and confirm with the club (verify); our page on what golf in Thailand costs sets out the tiers.
Is it right for your trip?
Play it for quantity that does not drop to poor quality: a mixed-ability group splits across the two courses, an improving golfer gets the wide, flat East, a good player gets the hills, views and fast greens of the West. It is also one of the easiest 36-hole days in Thailand, with a bed on site.
Demote it in three cases. If your trip allows one Pattaya round, the regional benchmark is Siam Country Club’s Old Course, and that is where the money goes. If a showpiece clubhouse matters, the golf has always been the point here rather than the building, recent refurbishment or not. And if weekends are your only window, the crowding is real.
Next, our Pattaya golf guide, then the Golf in Thailand hub and the Thailand golf course directory. Timing matters on an exposed nine like D, so check the best time to play golf in Thailand, then build the trip with our Thailand golf trip planner.