WHITEHEAD DRIVING RANGE

We were quite excited to visit the reopened Whitehead driving range in Hong Kong after it had been closed for a number of months. Whitehead driving range had been one of the oldest driving ranges in Hong Kong, opened for 17 years until last year when the government took it back. The lease was given to a transport company for a reported HKD$780,000 short-term lease but a group of golf instructors from Whitehead made a deal with the new landlord to lease 200,000 square meters for a 30 month term.

It’s been reopened for a while now and we’ve been expecting some good things, but unfortunately we were very disappointed with Whitehead driving range. To be quite blunt, it’s a piece of crap, just see the photos of Whitehead driving range for yourself and you’ll see what we’re on about. Whitehead driving range is now enclosed by shipping containers with the back fence about 180 yards away. about half of the bays you’re not allowed to use driver and even on the ones you can, we could still hit it over the net. It’s a real shame that Whitehead driving range has become what it has, it used to be a large range with short game area but after the closing, the short game area is gone and the whole range just looks like something you’d see in a Ghetto.

The atmosphere at Whitehead driving range is hard to describe, it’s definitely not a golf atmosphere and with the cranes and construction going on, we barely lasted an hour before heading back home to write this review. On the plus side, Whitehead driving range has some new mats, the bays are an okay size but the balls are from Asia Golf, another driving range in Hong Kong that closed down last year. We’ve seen worse driving range balls, but these are definitely nothing you’re going to excited about.

Getting to Whitehead driving range is perhaps the best thing, sure it’s quite far from Central/HK Island, but the drive out is not too bad and about 30 minutes with no traffic. You can take the Western or Eastern Tunnel and it’s highway for pretty much most of the way. But would we go back to Whitehead driving range? Not anytime soon and probably never unless there’s a damn good reason. There is a BBQ area out there, but do you really want to kick back with a few beverages and steaks while viewing shipping containers? We think not! Whitehead driving range is by the sea, and behind the range you can see the sea and some okay views, but you’ll need to contend with the shipping containers, which are everywhere.

The actual range itself, where you hit balls out to, well again we’ve seen worse, but there is some grass and targets so it’s not totally a lost cause. How does Whitehead driving range compare to the other driving ranges in Hong Kong? Down the list. Well for us there’s the driving range at the Hong Kong Golf Club, which is just miles above anything else, and then there’s the rest. So bad news if you were hoping for major improvements at Whitehead driving range, it’s another excuse NOT to play golf in Hong Kong and another sorry chapter for golfing in Hong Kong.

We paid $50 for an hour weekday, but check out their latest rates on the Whitehead driving range website, it’s all in Chinese but you’ll be able to figure it out, should you be really desperate to hit golf balls