Why this golf course far from home might catch your eye this weekend

In a world gone mad for golf, few countries are crazier about the game than South Korea.

This can be measured by simple economics. With a population of 51 million, South Korea boasts the third-largest golf market in the world, after the United States and Japan. But another telling metric is course construction. In the past 20 years, the number of green-grass layouts in South Korea has nearly doubled, from around 250 to upward of 500.

Of those courses, few enjoy a higher profile than the one that’s in the spotlight this week: Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea, where the Genesis Championship is underway.

As the final regular-season event on the DP World Tour — and the final cutoff to determine the 70 players who will make it to the Race to Dubai — the tournament has drawn a number of the circuit’s biggest names, including South Korean superstars Ben An and Tom Kim. 

In Thursday’s opening round, An fired a five-under 67. On Friday, he did one better. At 11 under for the tournament, he has a two-shot lead over Casey Jarvis of South Africa and Italy’s Francesco Laporta. That’s a lot of red numbers. But conditions have been soft. And those scores belie the challenge at hand. In a country where course difficulty is a point of pride, Jack Nicklaus GC is among the tougher tests.

Stretching more than 7,400 yards from the tips, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Design defends itself with more than length. Fairways and greens are guarded jealously by bunkers, and water is in play on more than half the holes.

This is not the first time the course has challenged the world’s best. Built over the course of three years, between 2007 and 2010, the layout was conceived with championship golf in mind. Even before it officially opened to its members, it hosted a PGA Tour Champions event. Five years later, it welcomed the 2015 Presidents Cup, the first time the biannual event was held in Asia.

Along with its design, the property’s infrastructure makes it a tournament-worthy venue. It is one of the few private clubs in land-cramped South Korea with a world-class practice range. It also enjoys a prime location, roughly 45 minutes from downtown Seoul, within easy striking distance of Incheon International Airport, in Songdo, an eco-conscious “smart city” of nearly 200,000 residents.

Like much of Incheon itself, the course’s construction was a feat of engineering, on waterfront land that had been reclaimed from the Yellow Sea. When Nicklaus Design president Paul Stringer first visited the site, in 2004, he recalls that “over half the property was under water.”

“What we created in Songdo over the next two years with infill from the Yellow Sea was truly amazing,” Stringer says.