Chungnam to Develop 'Park Golf Course' at Former Gubong Mine

Chungnam Province is transforming the former Gubong Mine in Cheongyang-gun into a park golf mecca.

On the 15th, the province announced that Kim Tae-heum, Governor of Chungnam, Kim Don-gon, Mayor of Cheongyang-gun, and Lee Geum-yong, President of the Korea Park Golf Association, met at the Chungnam Provincial Office to sign a business agreement regarding the relocation of the Korea Park Golf Association to Chungnam.

According to the agreement, the Korea Park Golf Association will build its office and education center on the site of the former Gubong Mine (146,125㎡) located in Guryong-ri, Namyang-myeon, Cheongyang-gun, and develop the largest park golf course in the country with 108 holes.

The project will commence this month and is scheduled to be completed by June 2025. The total project cost, including national funding, is 15 billion KRW.

The province expects that once the association's relocation and the park golf course development are completed, it will attract park golf enthusiasts nationwide to Cheongyang, thereby boosting local tourism and economic revitalization.

Initially, the province anticipates that about 18,000 people will visit Cheongyang annually for training and workshops for association leaders, referees, and senior instructors.

Additionally, by hosting more than 10 national tournaments annually, they plan to attract over 6,000 club members.

Considering the example of the 54-hole Sancheoneo Park Golf Course in Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon Province, which opened in July 2021, the province forecasts that the Cheongyang park golf course will attract more than 200,000 visitors annually.

The Hwacheon Park Golf Course has an average monthly usage of 8,800 visitors, half of whom are club members from the Seoul metropolitan area and other regions nationwide.

Meanwhile, park golf is a game played on a course of about 20,000㎡ (18 holes), using a wooden club similar to a golf club (86 cm, 600 g) to hit a plastic ball about 6 cm in diameter (compared to a regular golf ball of 4.2 cm) into the hole.

Usually played in groups of four, the player with the fewest strokes at the end of the course wins the game.

Currently, there are 28 park golf courses operating in Chungnam, with 2 more under construction. There are 144 local park golf clubs, and the number of registered members in these clubs has increased from 2,890 in 2020 to 4,375 in 2021, and 5,843 last year.