The Mines Resort - Malaysia

Golf in Malaysia dates back to the founding of the Royal Selangor Golf Club outside Kuala Lumpur in 1893, and has flourished in recent years. In 1997, one of Malaysia's most spectacular courses opened at the Mines Resort City outside Kuala Lumpur, developed by Malaysian business mogul Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., the course is a monumental environmental reclamation project, crafted out of an open-cast tin mine that had ceased operation. In 1999, the Mines hosted the World Cup won by the U.S. tandem of Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara.

Hornbill Golf and Jungle Club - Borneo, Malaysia

Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew, the obsessively eco-conscious developer of the Mines Resort outside Kuala Lumpur, followed up that development by creating the Highlands Resort and the Hornbill Golf and Jungle Club in the Malaysian Province of Sarawak on Borneo. The remote resort, built at an estimated cost of $100 million, is nestled in a 5,000-acre enclave of partially logged-out, ancient rain forest beneath the Penrissen Mountain Range, some 50 miles south of the Sarawak capital of Kuching. Designed by Australian Neil Crafter and opened in July 2000, the course tumbles through the lush highland jungle at 3,000 feet above sea level, with boulders left where they were found on the fairways, and river ravines and ponds coming into play. With its emphasis on environmental preservation, the resort uses solar power and serves only vegetarian food grown on its own organic farm. The course is named for the rhinoceros hornbills that are indigenous to the Borneo rain forest.