Tee Time In Vietnam

Don't misunderstand. There's absolutely no hanky-panky. You hardly even see any skin. In Vietnamese society, a fair complexion is treasured—a tan is the sign of a peasant who works in the fields—so the caddies wear long-billed caps or rice hats, and at the first sign of the sun they hastily pull on gloves and cover their faces with towels or veils. But they are quick with a smile and use what few English words they know to exhort you to make a "good par!" or a "nice birdie!" At the end of a round a tip of 50,000 dong ($3.50) will bring a smile that makes you feel like a multimillionaire.

Later we sampled Vietnam's nightlife. Heady does not begin to describe the sights and sounds of Ho Chi Minh City after dark. Street vendors, beggars, tourists, hookers, bicyclists, outdoor barbecuers and legless veterans clog the sidewalks. Motorbikes, some carrying up to four people, cruise the streets. It isn't unusual to see a three-year-old balancing precariously on the handlebars. Crossing the street is an adventure. Spotting me nervously poised on the curb as dozens of vehicles zoomed past, a 10-year-old girl hawking postcards chided, "What you waiting for, Joe? You chicken? Follow me." She stepped unhesitatingly into the traffic, which parted around her without slowing. She beckoned me to follow. There were four motorbikes between us at the time. "Don't run, Joe. It confuse them. Walk slow," she advised. It worked. I later learned, alarmingly, that there are 30 fatalities a day on the roads of Vietnam.

Saigon Tom and I had a drink at the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel, overlooking Ho Chi Minh Square, where CIA agents and journalists used to hang out during the war. We had a delicious, inexpensive meal at an open-air restaurant, where diners could inspect various pots of simmering fish dishes and stews, and point to the ones they wanted. We went to Club Blue, a huge, crowded, pulsing discotheque, where among the snappily dressed Vietnamese teenagers we ran into an American I'll call Bill—a golfer, as it happened—who looked like a self-styled Austin Powers-era swinger. Now in his 50s, he has lived in Vietnam for four years and had a girl on each arm. "All my moves that went out of style in the States 10 years ago are brand-new here," he said. "I haven't dated a girl over 20 in three years. They think I'm Richard Gere. I'll be taken home in a box."

We closed the night with a Guinness at Sheridan's Irish House, where a six-piece Vietnamese band featuring pennywhistle, accordion, banjo and fiddle serenaded patrons with Irish ballads—a cross-cultural treat that had to be experienced to be believed. It was, in sum, a rich, aromatic night.

Over the next three days we played Song Be Country Club and Dong Nai Resort, both good courses within 45 minutes of Ho Chi Minh City, and headed up the coast to Ocean Dunes Golf Club, a links-style Faldo design in the city of Phan Thiet, three hours away. Ocean Dunes is one of the few seaside courses in Asia, and its signature 9th hole, a 148-yard par-3, has been named one of Golf Magazine's top 500 holes in the world. We were there in late August, when it's hot and rainy, and were one of only two groups on the course. "Our high season is the end of October through April," said Frederic Lemoine-Romain, who runs the 122-room luxury hotel at Ocean Dunes, which is managed by Accor Group. "We get very few Americans here and no veteran groups. Most of my guests are Japanese and Korean."

Our final stop was Dalat, the crown jewel of Vietnamese golf, a four-hour drive from Phan Thiet into the Central Highlands. Dalat, a honeymoon destination known as the City of Eternal Spring because of its cool, crisp weather, is 5,000 feet above sea level, and the drive is as breathtaking as it is terrifying. Fortunately, Saigon Tom had hired a driver, Mr. Anh, who somehow avoided killing anyone en route. Autos shared the precipitous road with a dizzying array of bicycles, pedestrians, cattle, buses, chickens, motorbikes, toddlers and donkey-drawn carts. Anh didn't believe in braking. Approaching a logjam of living obstacles, he'd lean on his horn and expect the m�lange to magically part. Somehow it did. After a quarter of an hour I couldn't watch.

The luxurious Sofitel Dalat Palace Hotel, originally built in 1922 during French colonial rule, is one of three five-star hotels in the country. It was lavishly renovated in the early 1990s by California businessman Larry Hillblom, cofounder of DHL World-wide Express, who died in a plane crash off Saipan in 1995,10 days after the hotel reopened. Described as a billionaire who reputedly insisted on sleeping only with certified virgins, Hillblom was thought to have left no heirs. After his death, however, eight Asian women came forward and claimed he had sired their children. DNA tests determined that four of the eight children in question—two from the Philippines, one from Vietnam and one from Palau—were, in fact, his offspring, and each received an inheritance of about $50 million.

Hillblom's golf legacy is the Dalat Palace Golf Club, which he expanded to 18 holes and is world-class on every level. Because of its climate Dalat is the only course in Vietnam with bentgrass greens, and because of its remote location it gets only 6,000 rounds of play a year. Beautifully maintained, with stunning vistas and a challenging 7,009-yard, par-72 layout, Dalat is worth the effort to get there.

It is also worth the effort to schlepp your clubs on the trip. (Rental clubs, while available, are third rate.) Don't go expecting Pebble Beach or Augusta National. Go with eyes open and senses alert, and be prepared for a glimpse into a rapidly evolving culture of manifest warmth, energy and optimism. You won't forget your "good shots!"