HANOI · DANANG · SAIGON — 13 DAYS, 8 ROUNDS

My name is Alan, I am sixty-three, and in March I finally retired. Mick, who has organised our golf society trips since roughly the Blair years, decided this called for something bigger than our usual four days in the Algarve. Which is how four blokes with a combined age of 250 ended up playing golf the whole length of Vietnam: five nights in Hanoi, three in Danang, four in Saigon, eight rounds, two internal flights, one pottery lesson.

We booked it as a single package through TGROUP — one English-speaking guide handed us on from city to city, cars showed up, tee times existed. I promised my wife a proper diary and managed four entries in thirteen days. So instead, here is the whole trip as a glossary. It is not in alphabetical order. Neither were we.

PART ONE — HANOI, FIVE NIGHTS

Lis for Lie-ins

Here is the thing nobody tells you about this itinerary: every single tee time was 10:00. All eight. Breakfast without an alarm, second coffee, stroll to the car. After forty years of 7am medal starts in drizzle, this alone was worth the airfare.

Vis for Van Tri

Round one. A proper, polished members-club sort of course twenty minutes from our hotel, greens like snooker tables. It is also the best round of the trip I cannot prove, because my phone stayed in the locker all day. You will have to take my word on the two birdies. The lads do not.

Sis for Sky Lake

Round two, and the name is not decorative. Water everywhere. I donated three balls, John donated five and one head cover to a gust of wind. Then Legend Hill for round three — twin greens, a par three by a waterfall, and the first time all trip Ray said something complimentary.

Bis for Bat Trang

A day off between rounds at a pottery village outside Hanoi, which Ray declared "a waste of a golf day" at breakfast. By mid-afternoon he was hunched over a wheel like a man possessed and came home with a teapot. My bowl leans noticeably to the left. My wife keeps paperclips in it and calls it art.

PART TWO — DANANG, THREE NIGHTS

Fis for Flying with golf bags

Two internal flights on this trip. I had budgeted a full morning of arguing at check-in desks; in the event our guide did something quiet and efficient at the counter both times and we just stood there holding our passports like children on a school trip.

Gis for the dunes at BRG Danang

Round four. Links-ish, sandy, wind straight off the sea, and in July the kind of heat that makes you grateful for the buggy and the iced towels. Best-looking par threes of the trip until Laguna showed up.

His for Hoi An

Twenty minutes from the hotel and worth both evenings we gave it. Lanterns on the river, a tailor who measured Mick at 6pm and produced a jacket by the following lunchtime, and me buying three linen shirts I have since worn zero times. Go hungry: the food down those little streets is absurd.

Lis for Laguna Lang Co, again with the L

Round five, technically over the border in Hue province, and for my money the course of the trip: jungle and mountains down one side, the South China Sea down the other, fairways you could land a glider on. I played rubbish and did not care even slightly.

His for the Hai Van Pass

After the round, the driver took us up the old mountain road for the view back over Danang — sea one side, city the other, clouds below the summit. Ray went quiet for a full ten minutes, a trip record that stands to this day.

PART THREE — SAIGON, FOUR NIGHTS

Kis for Knees

The Saigon leg is the working man’s end of the trip: Vietnam Golf & Country Club, Long Thanh, Song Be — three rounds in three days. Round seven at Long Thanh was glorious. By the back nine of round eight at Song Be, four sets of sixty-something knees had formed a union and issued demands. Fair warning: a 10:00 tee down south in July means finishing in the full heat of the day. Drink every bottle of water they hand you, and they hand you a lot.

Pis for Pho

Also for the barbecued everything our guide kept ordering at places we would never have walked into on our own, which turned out to be half the point of having him. Meals were in the package; the waistline consequences were not.

Mis for the Mekong

Last day, clubs already packed: a boat on the delta, coconut sweets, fruit straight off the tree, and a slow brown river doing its thing. A strange, calm way to end a golf trip, and exactly the right one. We flew home smelling of sunscreen and river.

THE FINAL COUNT

Eight rounds. Three cities. Two internal flights. Twelve nights. One teapot, one leaning bowl, three unworn linen shirts. Scores available on request from anyone except me.

Money, since you will ask: the land package came to a touch over 63 million dong a head — call it around US$2,400 — with flights to Vietnam, tips and the beer on top. It needs a minimum of four to run, which is conveniently the exact size of a golf society that still speaks to each other after forty years.

We ran the whole thing through TGROUP and the honest review is that the machinery was invisible: one thread of messages before we flew, then thirteen days where the only decisions we made were club selection and dinner. If your lot fancy it, ask them about the thirteen-day, eight-round one from Hanoi down — and be realistic with them about how many back-to-back rounds your foursome can actually survive. They will build it around the answer.

— Alan. The bowl still leans. ★★★★½ if anyone is counting.