Vinpearl Golf Nam Hoi An: The Destination is Better Than The Course

Gunnar Kobin

Mar 24

5 min read

Updated: Oct 22

I will start with the advice, because it is the most useful thing in this post. If you are choosing between a round at Vinpearl Golf Nam Hoi An and a day in Hoi An Old Town, go to the old town. It wins every time.

Walk the old lantern-lit streets. Look at the river view that has been pulling visitors in for centuries. Get your picture next to the best bowl of white rose dumplings you can find, and make your friends try the local cabbage and shrimp head soup. Just try not to trip over the thousands of other tourists doing exactly the same.

Vinpearl Golf Nam Hoi An is slightly better than average. Sometimes that is the most damning thing you can say about a golf course. On some holes it felt worse than that.

Getting there is easy. The course is about 12 kilometres south of Hoi An and 30 kilometres from Da Nang airport. It is part of the Vinpearl Nam Hoi An Resort, which has a five-star hotel, private villas, a waterpark and a casino. Keep your expectations low and you will be fine. That is not a joke, it is the strategy.

The arrival is the best part of the golf day, and I mean that as a compliment to the staff. There were lines of caddies waiting to welcome us. The practice area has a proper grass tee, separate chipping and putting areas and everything else you need to get loose before the round. It is professional, and I take my hat off to them for it.

A bit of history, such as it is. The course was designed by IMG, without a signature architect's name attached. You notice that later.

The opening holes carry on where the practice area left off. The fairways are lush Paspalum, set against white sand waste areas, casuarina pines down the sides and gently rolling dunes. For the first five holes it looks the way a links course should look, and it photographs very well. At that point you are glad you drove down from Da Nang.

Then the course runs out of ideas.

What IMG did here is put all the good bits at the front and then repeat one template for the remaining thirteen holes. Wide fairway, white sand bunker on one side, gently rolling green. Wide fairway, white sand bunker, gently rolling green. By the back nine you stop noticing the formula because you have seen it so many times.

Nothing here comes close to the 10th tee at Ba Na Hills, the 16th on the Norman Course, or any of the views from the dune tops at The Bluffs. Each of those courses has a moment that makes you walk faster to the next tee. Vinpearl does not have one. It is easy, bland resort golf.

The greens are slow. I understand that slow greens seem to be the norm on most courses in central Vietnam, but on a new, modern course in good condition it is not a fair compromise. Without some pace on the greens you take away the skill test on the putting surface.

The design feels very American. Wide, flat-bottomed fairways, generous landing areas, and so many similar holes that you keep pulling the same club on the same kind of tee. It is a Florida resort course with a Vietnamese coastline instead of a Florida highway beside it. That is not a crime on its own. But you can play Florida resort golf much closer to home, so it is hard to justify flying to Vietnam for it.

OK, the actual golf, mine. I played it in March 2026 off the blue tees and shot 81, which on this course tells you more about the course than about me. Forty out, 41 back. The interesting bit is where the damage came. The opening stretch, the good-looking part, is where I made my worst score of the day: a 5 on the par-3 3rd. Par, bogey, double, then pars again on the 4th and the par-5 5th.

After that the card looks as repetitive as the holes. Par, bogey, par, par. On the back nine I did not make a single double. Bogeys on the 10th and 11th, mostly pars through the middle, and a 6 on the par-5 18th to finish. No birdies all day, but nothing that hurt either. A course that asks the same question thirteen times in a row gets the same answer thirteen times in a row.

The caddies are friendly and enthusiastic. Their English is not perfect, but good enough to understand the course and make sensible decisions. You will get the distance to the pin and plenty of friendly gestures. You will not get much help with wind or reading putts.

About the wind. The caddies all over Vietnam seem to have been through the same school of thought on this, if not the same school. Ask any caddie in the country whether the wind is helping or hurting and the answer will be "follow wind" for downwind or "back wind" for into the wind. It is almost endearing. By the third course it has become a running joke.

The other recurring theme is pace of play. The round dragged. Just like on the Nicklaus Course at Legends, there was no marshal out there to move things along. It seems to be a Vietnam-wide issue rather than only a Vinpearl one, but plan for it. Five hours in the hot tropical sun on a course that does not keep your mind busy is a painful way to burn an afternoon.

To be fair, Vinpearl does several things well. The facilities are first class. The fairways are well kept and nice to look at. The resort and the golf both cater well for families and non-golfers, and the beaches and entertainment are good. The first few holes are very pretty. A photo of the first fairway at golden hour would make anyone want to book. The rest of the course just does not live up to that photo.

Final word.

Vinpearl is a well-maintained course with good facilities, and you will leave feeling neither hot nor cold about it. In a region with this many good courses, indifference is the worst result a course can get.

Should you play it? If you are building a Da Nang golf trip around Ba Na Hills, the Norman Course and Hoiana Shores, Vinpearl is fine for filling a spare slot. If the choice is between Vinpearl and a day wandering Hoi An Old Town, eating your way through the old quarter and watching the Thu Bon River light up in the evening, take the day off.

The course will still be there next time. Hoi An at dusk is the thing you will remember.