Every great golf destination has one course that justifies the flight on its own. In Hainan, that course is The Dunes at Shenzhou Peninsula — a coastal links shaped by sand dunes, ocean wind and the South China Sea, widely regarded as the best links course in China. It sits on the east coast of a tropical island, 30 days visa-free for most passports, and just 30 minutes' drive from the PerfectSwell® wave pool at Riyue Bay. This guide covers the setting, the rankings, the two layouts, and how a round here fits into a surf & golf trip.
Why golfers call it the best links course in China
The rankings tell part of the story. Golf Digest placed The Dunes #2 in all of China in 2022, Forbes lists it among the top 10 courses in Asia, and US Golf Magazine named it Best New International Course when it opened. But numbers undersell what makes the place special: few golf courses in China have a setting like this. The holes are built along the coast through natural sand dunes, with dramatic bunkering and wide-open ocean views — a true links experience with a tropical island edge.
Raw, cinematic, and deeply connected to the landscape — that's how the golfers we've sent describe it. If you've played the classic links of Scotland or Ireland, the vocabulary is familiar: wind that changes club selection between the tee and the fairway, firm turf, greens defended by the land itself. The difference is that here you're playing it in boardshorts weather, on the same coastline you surfed that morning.
The design: Tom Weiskopf & Phil Smith, 2014
The Dunes was designed by Tom Weiskopf and Phil Smith and opened in 2014 as a par-72 coastal links. Rather than bulldozing the site flat, the routing follows the natural dune land along the peninsula — fairways thread between sandhills, bunkers blend into native sand, and the sea is a constant presence, sometimes framing a green, sometimes waiting directly behind it.
Because the course was shaped by the landscape rather than imposed on it, no two rounds play the same. The ocean wind is the real course designer here: the same hole can ask for two different games in the morning and the afternoon.
36 holes: the East and West courses
There's more golf here than most people expect. The Dunes is really two courses in one — 36 holes across the East and West layouts, threaded along the same wild stretch of coast.
The West Course
The runaway favorite among the golfers we've sent, and the round we point you to first. This is the layout that earned the rankings — the one that delivers the full dunes-and-ocean links experience from the opening tee shot.
The East Course
The second 18 shares the same coastal dune land and the same designers, which makes The Dunes an easy place to spend two days rather than one. Staying at a resort by the wave pool, plenty of our guests play both layouts across a trip — West first, then back for the East.
Where it is and how to get there
The course sits on the Shenzhou Peninsula in Wanning, on Hainan's east coast — about 30 minutes by car from Riyue Bay and the wave pool. Fly into Haikou (HAK) or Sanya (SYX); there are direct flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Haikou, and easy connections through Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. Our full routing guide covers every option, and most passports — U.S., Australian, NZ, UK, Canadian and many more — enter Hainan visa-free for up to 30 days.
When you travel with us, none of the logistics are yours to solve: tee times, transport to the course and pairings are arranged as part of your trip. That's the point of the golf inquiry — tell us your dates and handicap, and we build the golf around your surf.
The surf & golf day it makes possible
This is the pairing that doesn't exist anywhere else on earth: a morning session at the world's only wave pool on a tropical island — around twenty wave settings, from beginner rollers to barrels, see how a surf session runs — followed by an afternoon round on China's best links, 30 minutes up the coast. Add a second course and you have a proper golf trip inside a surf trip: Blackstone at Mission Hills Haikou, the black-lava course played by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, is covered on our golf page alongside The Dunes.
Evenings take care of themselves — fresh seafood and Xinglong coffee in Wanning, resort pools, and an early night before the next morning's waves. For the full day-by-day version of that trip, read our 6-day surf & golf itinerary.
The Dunes at a glance
Ready to put a links round inside your surf trip? Browse the trip packages, send a golf inquiry, or read more on the journal — and for dates and tee times, reach us at hello@surfchina.co or WhatsApp +8613893402173.
