The Orient Golf and Country Club

About the club

American Ronald Fream has quietly earned a worldwide reputation, with courses in Spain, Finland, North Africa, India and South Korea. Fream's team came to this challenging site in Guelshan Township not far outside Taipei with the know-how to make sure that the soil, drainage, landscaping and maintenance would all be provided for in the absence of local experience with golf facilities. The site is fairly hilly and quite confined, but Fream managed to work in eighteen holes across a steep slope and along the top of a flat bluff. Now entering its second decade, the Orient has become a regular venue for the island's top tournaments. One of the club's major attractions is its award-winning contemporary clubhouse, which is sunk into the hillside so that visitors park in a subterranean lot, and the second story is even with the back nine; it even features a turf-covered roof for maximum integration into the surroundings.