• GAME IMPROVEMENT: The Golf Academy is the country’s most sophisticated practice and instruction facility, with videotape swing analysis, club fitting, lighting for after-dark practice, and separate areas for chipping, putting, and bunker play.

• GETTING THERE: The first 18-hole layout to open in the Central Coast region, it’s the perfect unifying element for the Trail, roughly equidistant between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

• DAY TRIP: Hoi An, “Vietnam’s hippest heritage town,” is easily accessible, by car, bus, or bicycle – a great place to dine, shop, visit a spa, or learn about the area’s fascinating diversity.

• SIGNATURES: Your most memorable hole may be defined as much by a stunning backdrop as the hole itself. Marble Mountain is a particularly vivid presence on Nos. 13, 16, and 17, while the sleek, 3,000-square-metre clubhouse frames Nos. 12, 15, and 18.

• DESIGN CONSCIOUS: The Nam Hai, the course’s resort accommodations link, is famous for its contemporary interpretation of Vietnamese “garden house” architecture, as well as for its epic beachfront.

• THINGS PAST: An abandoned gun emplacement pillbox, now overgrown with vegetation, flanks the tee box of No. 6, a short, downhill par 5 where the strategic question is whether to lay up or “go for it.”