Best new golf courses set to open in 2022

We have picked out the best new golf courses set to open in 2022, featuring superb new layouts in France, Portugal, St. Lucia, Thailand, and New Zealand. Let’s take a look.

Les Bordes Golf Club – New Course

Now open to play, Les Bordes Golf Club – New Course, south of Paris, is a boldly bunkered, heathland-style Gil Hanse design, the man behind Castle Stuart, Streamsong Black and the Rio Olympics Course. The course sits alongside Les Bordes Old Course, the excellent Robert von Hagge design. 

This new par-72, 7,300-yard layout features subtle elevation changes, while its heathland style will stand it apart from the Old Course. And while the Old is more about target-orientated golf, this course emphasizes the ground game and the ability to shape shots along the playing surfaces. The course runs pleasingly through the heather, broom and pine, chestnut, birch and oak trees of Sologne Forest, and Hanse cites the heathland courses around London and Paris and Pine Valley in the US as influences to his design.

“It is very different stylistically to the original 18-hole course,” said Hanse. “We realised there was the potential to create some bold and dramatic features and strategies or options. We could create a course that would be in balance with the low-profile nature of the site, with more dramatic hole features adding drama to the course.”

Les Bordes is now one of the finest golf destinations for the whole family in Europe. On-site amenities include natural swimming lakes and pools, beaches, watersports, go-karting, fishing, equestrian, biking and walking trails. Future investment plans include a luxury hotel and spa, a village square with shops and restaurants and a variety of residential homes.

Cabot St. Lucia

Following on from its success with Cabot Cape Breton in Canada’s Nova Scotia, the Cabot brand is now launching the Cabot Saint Lucia golf resort in 2022. The resort will feature an 18-hole golf course designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and a collection of guest accommodation and residences ranging from hillside townhouses to expansive single-family homes and beachfront lots, along with a beach club, spa and fitness facilities.

Cabot Saint Lucia is situated in Point Hardy, a scenic peninsula in the north of the island, a fantastic location for the heralded design duo behind Barnbougle Lost Farm, Pinehurst No.2 and Streamsong Red. Perched above the Atlantic Ocean and crafted around the cliffs and valleys of Point Hardy’s magnificent landscape, the 18-hole course offers a superb Caribbean golf experience, with each hole capitalizing on the unique topography of this incredible site, with fairways winding through lush terrain, over rocky outcrops and along tropical bays and sandy beaches.

Nine of the holes are along the ocean, among them back-to-back par-3s for holes 16 and 17. “You could make an argument that this is the most visually dramatic site with which we have ever worked and that is saying a lot.” Coore said.

Comporta Dunes

Delayed due to finance issues and the Covid-19 pandemic, this course is now finally due to open later in 2022. Comporta Dunes in southern Portugal is located near the village of Carvalhal, close to Pego Beach, and has been designed by Scotland’s David McLay Kidd, the man responsible for a number of superb courses around the world including TPC San Francisco and St Andrews Links Castle Course.

Comporta Dunes is set within a stunning terrain of pine forest and sand dunes with breathtaking sea views. Eventually it will be part of a larger resort of villas, hotels and leisure and spa facilities.

“Golf never finds a better home than along sandy shores, like those at Comporta. Sand and sea are the fundamental ingredients to great golf, just look at any list of the best courses in the world, from St. Andrews to Pebble Beach, the sand, the breeze and the shoreline are the elements man cannot create, they have to exist naturally,” said Kidd.

Siam Country Club Bangkok

Siam Country Club Bangkok is the newest and fifth golf course at Siam Country Club in Thailand. The others are: the 50-year-old 18-hole Old Course, the 27-hole Plantation, the 18-hole Waterside and the 18-hole Rolling Hills. This new 18-hole championship course, named Bangkok, was designed by Toby Cobb, a design associate of Coore and Crenshaw Design.

Fairways are gentle with soft rolling slopes and water comes into play at four holes. Many small potted grass face bunkers are scattered throughout and the large greens are tricky yet challenging. Precision distancing and placement on the greens are key to success here. 

There’s a fine finishing hole towards the clubhouse’s restaurant, unusually a par 3 to a huge green protected to the left by a small 3-meter deep potted bunker from which escape is not easy. Together with the other courses here, this is a must visit club for golfers travelling to Thailand.

Te Arai Links South Course

Positioned alongside New Zealand‘s dramatic coastline, Te Arai Links promises to be a world-class golf destination, boasting two pure links golf courses designed by Tom Doak and the other by Coore and Crenshaw.

Construction of the new Coore and Crenshaw-designed South course is complete ahead of an opening in October 2022. The new South course is part of the Te Arai development, due to open in late 2023, with restaurants, cottages and villas, located on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. The project follows the success of, and is close to, Tara Iti, the 18-hole course by Doak that opened in 2015 to worldwide acclaim. And Coore believes this new course will hold its own alongside Tara Iti in terms of quality.

He said: “It could be argued that the Te Arai site has a greater variety of dramatic landforms than Tara Iti. The Te Arai routing showcases the amazingly varied topography of this dramatic site and the sequence of holes and individual character of each hole was determined and defined by each hole’s natural landforms as presented through the routing.”