Red Mountain is the round visiting golfers in Phuket talk about afterwards, and the one that quietly dismantles their scorecards. Jon Morrow and Al Tikkanen routed it through a worked-out open-cast tin mine in Kathu and, rather than smooth the site, built through it: red rock walls, eroded tailings, flooded pits and a climb of roughly 100 metres to the island’s highest tee. It is Phuket’s marquee green fee and its stiffest test, and for most visitors it earns the money.
Below: the design and the published numbers, the holes that decide your card, getting to Kathu, the club’s rules on caddies and carts, and whether a mid-handicapper should book it.
The course itself
The club credits the design to Jon Morrow and Al Tikkanen. The opening year is 2007, per MBK’s own Tinidee resort site and every operator listing we checked; the club’s pages state no year. It is a par 72 — four par 3s, four par 5s, ten par 4s — over ground the club describes as sculpted into rugged rock left from the mine days, with pits flooded into water hazards and hillsides scraped back to the native red clay.
Published totals vary. The club’s scorecard totals 6,745 yards from the black (championship) tees; its own course description says 6,781; operator listings run from 6,723 to about 6,905. Treat the card you are handed as the authority; its distances are yards to the green centre. The table below follows the club’s March 2023 card, which predates the current reconfiguration.
| Tee | Yards | Course rating | Slope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | 6,745 | 72.7 | 136 |
| Blue | 6,307 | 70.4 | 128 |
| White | 5,898 | 68.6 | 121 |
| Red | 5,148 | 70.4 | 123 |
Those numbers settle the question everyone asks here: is the severity real, or marketing? Real — but not about length. A shade under 6,750 yards is unremarkable for a championship card; a slope of 136 is not, and 121 from under 5,900 yards says the trouble does not vanish when you move forward. Two front-nine par 4s measure 432 and 480 yards from the black (the 6th, stroke index 1, is still 434 from the white), and greens carry false fronts eight yards deep or split into three sections.
Conditioning is the steadier theme: the club calls the course immaculately maintained, and operators who resell it every season praise drainage that returns fairways to play fast after storms. Greens run quick, from small and flat to sharply contoured. Operator listings specify Bermuda greens and seashore paspalum fairways; the club itself publishes no turf types.
One current caveat. The layout is mid-reconfiguration: a recent reviewer on GolfSavers reports four holes closed and four new ones opened, and the Asian Seniors Tour noted the new holes “took most participants by surprise” in April 2026. The club has not said which four, but the current scorecard published by local operator phuketgolfcourse.com shows the back nine re-sequenced, with the old 10th, 14th, 17th — the famous 169-yard drop hole — and 18th replaced by four new holes, including two new par 3s of 125 and 220 yards. The club’s own hole notes still describe the pre-change layout, so the hole numbers below follow the old card — ask in the pro shop what you will play.
Competitive pedigree, such as it is
There is no deep professional tournament history here, and the club does not pretend otherwise — its pitch is that Red Mountain is “known locally as the most challenging course in Phuket and often voted amongst Thailand’s finest.” What is verifiable is the senior circuit: the Asian Seniors Tour has staged its Asian Senior Masters at the club, including April 2024 and April 2026. Thailand’s Udorn Duangdecha won in 2026 for the fourth year running, on 213 for 54 holes — three under par. When senior professionals produce a three-under winner, the slope rating is telling the truth. The club also displays a Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice award for 2025.
The holes worth knowing
Hole numbers follow the club’s pre-reconfiguration card — see the caveat above.
- 3rd, par 3. A short iron to what the club calls a virtually island green, over gullies cut by storm water across mine tailings. Short is lost; three sections, swirling wind.
- 8th, par 4. Water both sides of a very narrow green; even the safe tee shot leaves a sub-100-yard carry, and the greenside bunker is worse.
- 13th, par 4. Widely considered the course’s best par 4, per the club’s own notes: a blind drive over a mound, then a green entrance shaped to reward bold play.
- 15th, par 4. Left largely as the miners left it — a narrow fairway climbing 25-yard terraces, with a ravine right where the ball is simply gone.
- 16th, par 4. The highest tee on any Phuket course, the view behind the green running to the Big Buddha. The club puts the climb at over 100 metres from the 15th green (100 yards above the 14th, on another page). Fairway 30 yards wide at the landing point.
- 17th, par 3. The signature, and by the club’s own account its most photographed hole: 169 yards from the black tees, dropping into a red-rock valley. The club says over 40 metres of drop, third parties 50 to 70. One or two clubs less, kept low.
- 18th, par 5. A brook splits driving fairway from approach fairway, water frames the right all the way home, red cliffs left. Carry the plateau past the pot bunker for 40 extra yards.
Location and getting there
The club sits at 119 Moo 4 Vichitsongklam Road in Kathu district, centre-island, beside its sister course Loch Palm. The airport is Phuket International, code HKT — confirmed on Airports of Thailand’s own Phuket site. The club puts itself 25 km away; one independent guide makes it 33 km by road. Published drive times run about 30 minutes on clear roads, so budget 45 in traffic.
The beaches are closer: the club says ten minutes from Patong and Phuket Town, operators 15–20 from Patong and Karon. Kathu lies inland behind the ridge from Patong, so the hill road is the pinch point and an early tee time beats it — finish, shower and be back with the family before lunch. Accommodation exists inside the estate, including MBK-owned Tinidee Golf Resort Phuket. For sequencing rounds and travel days, see our Thailand golf trip planner.
Practical notes
- Carts are compulsory. The club requires one for every golfer: the course is not walkable for most people, given the elevation and the gaps between tees.
- Caddies are mandatory, as at effectively every Thai club — see our guide to the Thai caddie system and tipping. Here, one who knows the false fronts earns the fee twice over.
- Pace. Four players maximum, a marshal on course at all times, rounds expected inside four and a quarter hours — which the club admits the terrain tests.
- Dress code. Collared shirts and appropriate footwear; shorts encouraged, hats suggested.
- Facilities. A 25-bay grass range for that day’s players, pro shop with premium rentals, free lockers and showers, air-conditioned restaurant over the 9th and 18th, four on-course kiosks.
- Pricing. The top of the Phuket market, routinely described as the island’s most expensive round, cart and caddie on top. Rates move with season, day and channel, so confirm current green fee, cart and caddie charges with the club or your agent (verify). Our page on what golf in Thailand costs breaks down the line items.
- Timing. Morning on both counts: climbing and heat add up (see playing golf in hot weather), and greens are quickest in the dry months — when to play golf in Thailand.
Is it right for your trip?
Book it if you want the one Phuket round you will still be describing next year, and if you play a tee that suits your game. From the white tees at 5,898 yards, a 15-to-20 handicapper who takes an iron off the tight tees, treats the par 5s as three-shot holes and follows the caddie’s club on the drops will have a good day — and still lose balls in jungle and ravine. Off the black, it is a low-handicapper’s examination.
Skip it if your group insists on walking, if blind tee shots and severe greens irritate rather than interest you, or if one premium fee would swallow two other rounds — Loch Palm next door is the gentler, cheaper companion at par 71 and about 6,000 yards from the blues. Golfers who struggle to get the ball airborne will find the carries at the 3rd, 8th and 17th punishing, and the live course works are fair reason to ask what you will play.
For where it fits on the island, start with our Phuket golf guide and the Golf in Thailand hub. The natural companion is Blue Canyon Country Club, Phuket’s other layout on former tin-mine ground, which uses that inheritance very differently.