OCT Yunhai Valley Lake Course

Course design

From hillside to shore

Yunhai Valley was built as part of OCT’s resort on the north shore of Yangzong Lake. The club started in 2013. The general manager recalled that the first holes to open were the Lake Course’s front nine and the Mountain Course’s back nine. Planet Golf lists 2014 for the Lake Course. [1] [2] [4]

The Lake layout began uphill, then descended towards the water. The back nine came closest to the shore. Planet Golf reports that holes originally laid out closer to the lake were moved inland to leave a wetland buffer. The 2016 Buick League course notes record creeping bentgrass on both fairways and greens. [1] [3]

Featured hole · 4th, par 3

Planet Golf singles out the long fourth as one of the front nine’s strongest holes. When the Buick League held its southern and northern semifinals at Yunhai Valley in July 2016, each course offered a hole-in-one prize on its own fourth. The southern teams played the Lake layout. [1] [3]

Closure and later use

Lake protection and the halt to play

In August 2016, Kunming ordered OCT’s golf operation to stop and required land in Yangzonghai’s first-level protection zone to be restored to ecological use. The national clean-up results published in early 2017 placed the club in the rectification category. The Lake front nine was still in tournament use in April 2018. Later that year, central inspectors reported that the operator had continued to run the venue and that a rest area and toilets still stood within the protection zone. [8] [9] [10]

Local reporting dates a suspension to November 2018. On 28 November 2019, the Yangzonghai Scenic Area management committee announced a club-wide halt to operations and prohibited play, according to Yunnan Fangwang’s report on the notice. [11] [12]

Later coverage of the wider resort describes a sports park, flower displays and a waterfront wetland park. For golf at Yunhai Valley, the Mountain Course has a separate current guide. [13] [14]