Shanghai Links Golf Course

Few courses announce their ambitions quite as plainly as Shanghai Links, a private club on the eastern outskirts of the city that has positioned itself among the more serious championship venues in mainland China. Designed by Nelson & Haworth and opened in 2003, the layout sprawls across the flat coastal plain of Pudong, where the land offers little natural drama but the design team compensated with strategic bunkering, water hazards threaded throughout, and a routing that rewards thoughtful play over raw power. The course has hosted significant professional events, helping to establish Shanghai's credentials as a genuine destination on the Asian golf circuit.

Shanghai itself is one of the world's great cities for contrasts, and that quality carries onto the course — sleek, modern, and meticulously maintained, yet with a skyline presence that reminds you constantly where you are. The Pudong district, once farmland, now represents China's appetite for reinvention.

For visiting golfers, Shanghai Links delivers a polished, serious test in a setting that reflects the ambition of the city that built it. Conditioning is typically excellent, expectations are high, and the atmosphere skews formal.