The Tan Son Nhat Airport golf course will close to make room for a planned hangar and terminal expansion while a District 2 course has become an urban space.
The two golf courses will be shut down while three others are narrowed according to a recently passed resolution. The Department of Planning and Architecture explains that golf courses are undesirable because the expensive sport requires a large amount of land that could be better utilized. The department recommended future courses be built in cultivated, low-productive areas.
Urban golf courses, like the one near the airport, are also often criticized for poisoning local residents. The herbicides and other chemicals used to keep the course in shape could leech into water supplies and increase people's risks for cancer.
Closing Tan Son Nhat Airport course with adjoining hotel and entertainment complex makes way for the next step in the airport expansion which will be completed by 2020, allowing the airport to service an additional 20 million passengers a year.
Vietnam is home to more than 40 golf courses. The international-standard, 157-acre, 36-hole course just minutes from the airport opened in 2015. It has caused controversy previously in part because some critics think that it's currently based on land needed for storing airplanes overnight. According to reporters from Tuoi Tre who spoke with caddies, over 70% of the golfers that play there are Korean.
[Photo via Naples Herald]
