Mountain golf course gets positive feedback
Pravit Reung-po, 48, learned how to design golf courses while working for a company that built links designed by Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo in Thailand.
Pravit said that he has worked for 10 years building courses since he graduated an engineering degree from Uthenthawai Technology Institute (now known as Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan). After building courses designed by golf experts, Pravit decided it might be fun to own his own golf club. So he took his savings and bought 1,000 rai near Khuntan National Park in Lamphun at a price of Bt100,000 per rai over a period of 15 years between 1987 and 2002. Once he'd amassed the land he started designing the course on his own in 2003 and opened the club in November 2004. Pravit said that he spent his life savings on the course and had to dig deeper by borrowing funds from a Thai bank to develop the Bt700-million Gassan Khuntan Golf & Resort. "I used my nearly 10 years of experience to design the 18-hole Gassan Khuntan Golf & Resort, which combines both easy and difficult holes, and will challenge almost every golf player," he said. Before Pravit built Gassan Khuntan Golf & Resort, he opened driving ranges on Rama II Road in Bangkok and another in Chiang Mai, both of them under the name Gassan. Pravit said the name Gassan - Japanese for "Sunshine in the mountains" - had been suggested to him by a Japanese friend who visited his land in Khuntan. One morning the sun was peaking over the peaks of Khuntan Mountain and his friend made the remark, "Gassan". At that point the name stuck with Pravit. "We tried to design and develop our golf course to be the best in Southeast Asia and are proud that it was designed by Thai people, proving that we can compete with golf clubs designed by foreign golf experts," he said. He said Gassan Khuntan Golf and Resort had received positive feedback from visitors. Somluck Srimalee, The Nation, KHUNTAN, LAMPHUN
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