Kyi Hla Han the Asian Tour Commisioner has also played a big part in designing the back nine holes at the Dalat 1200 Golf Club here in Vietnam.
54 year old Kyi Hla Han actually turned professional in 1980 and three years later recorded his first professional win at the 1983 Malaysian PGA Championship. He was one of the founding members of the Asian PGA Tour. He then played on the Asian Tour from its debut season in 1995 and in 1999 was the top money winner on the tour.
Since 2006 he has travelled the world as Chairman of the Asian Tour and he is given credit for having overseen the rapid growth of the tour. He has provided a guiding hand in the development of professional golf in Asia since the early 1990s, and it with this background that the owners of Dalat 1200 were delighted when he accepted their offer to help them create this spectacular.
In fact his first signature course designer was back in Myanmar his home country near Mandalay, so this Vietnam course is in fact his second design.
Kyi Hia Han said,
“As a professional golfer I have travelled around the world playing on some of the best courses and it is always a dream of every professional to get into golf design….Jack Nicklaus started it now you see Norman, Faldo all the top players doing it. I said one day I would love to design one too.”
He told us that a friend of his made a chance opportunity for him to meet these developers in Dalat, who were a Singaporean group.
“Then they said would I like to design them a course, so when I went to look it was 4,000 feet above sea level in the hills and it was a beautiful site. In fact they had already done nine holes and they needed the back nine created. I agreed and said I would love to take the time to do this work.”
“From a practical point of view I had a really good team around me, and it was probably the most fun time I ever had. It was basically just a jungle and there was a lot of imagination and creativity involved and that’s what I enjoy. I was a very creative player and here I also used my experience to create a lot of holes that need creativity and a lot of strategy too.”
He created the Asian Tour Destinations, similar to what the PGA Tour has with their TPC courses. The first destination is at Dalat 1200 and also at Sentosa in Singapore, and there will be more in the future.
