SON TAY, Viet Nam -- As the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail blows
out the candle on an award-winning first year, one of its most popular
links has positioned itself to capitalize on the adventure's enormous
exposure.

At the end of May, the entire back nine of Kings' Island Golf Club's
renowned Mountainview course will be lit for evening play. The front
nine should be lit by the end of June. And then work begins on the
illumination of the club's Lakeside course.

"We're blazing all kinds of new ground in Vietnam," said Joe Millar,
director of golf at Kings' Island. "We were the first course to open
in the north of Vietnam, and now we're the first in Vietnam to let
there be light at night. This adds a whole new dimension to the game
in the tropics, where many golfers would just as soon wait for the sun
to mellow out before teeing off."

Kings' Island plans to keep the lights burning until 10 p.m.,
extending play throughout the year by three to four hours per day.
Though plans don't call for work-week lighting, it's already clear to
Millar the club needs more light on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"If you tee off at 5 p.m., you'll get out and back before we pull the
plug," said Millar. "And if it's just a twosome, and they're cooking,
they'll make it all the way even if they start at dusk."

In play since 1994, Kings' Island pioneered the game in the environs
of Hanoi. The club keys on two 18-hole courses—one routed close to the
shoreline of an 1,100-hectare lake and the other on heavily wooded
upland terrain—accessible only by boat.

Workers at the course spent two months raising the 18-meter masts and
rigging the metal halide lamps. A single mast rises over every teebox.
Others march down the fairway at intervals of 50 meters to the greens,
where two more shed light for putting.

Robert McFarland designed Kings' Island's 18-hole Lakeside track. Its
gentle slopes and myriad peninsulas flirt with the inlets of the
surrounding waters. Australian-based Pacific Coast Design (creator of
the famed Alpine GC in Bangkok) complemented the 6,454-yard Lakeside
track with the muscular, 7,100-yard Mountainview course. Each is
manicured to a championship standard while trading on a setting of
stunning natural beauty.

Located 25 miles west of Hanoi, Kings' Island stands as the northern
terminus of the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, a north-south suite of
Vietnam's finest golfing venues. The Trail
(www.hochiminhgolftrail.com) doesn't merely assemble Vietnam's best
golfing venues in a North-South fashion, like its namesake trail. It
pairs these first-class clubs and resorts with some of the most
remarkable, luxury accommodations in world golf, while connecting
golfers themselves to all the Trail's cultural offerings.

"Every course on the trail is distinguished in its own way, and each
of us is striving to create the most memorable experience for any of
the players who walk our holes," said Millar. "Now that we're switched
on, we just upped the ante on what constitutes an exceptional
experience."

In December, the International Association of Golf Travel Operators
(IAGTO) named Vietnam its 2007 "Undiscovered Golf Destination of the
Year." The International Golf Travel Writers Association pegged
Vietnam as the year's undiscovered gem based on the country's
attractiveness, course quality, standard of accommodation and other
factors. The award was a crowning moment in a pivotal golf year for
Vietnam.

Currently, there are 15 golf courses operating in Vietnam, with more
than 30 projects in some stage of construction. In addition to Kings'
Island, golfing stops along the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail include:

• Chi Linh Star Golf & Country Club, a dazzling collection of 27 holes
outside Hanoi and recent host to the Asian PGA Tour's Carlsberg
Masters.

• Dalat Palace Golf Club, a mile-high gem, with bent-grass greens,
laid out in the early 1930s for Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam.

• Dong Nai Golf Resort, a breathtaking, 27-hole track designed by
American Ward Northrup, whose layout skirts the inlets and shores of a
natural lake.

• Ocean Dunes Golf Club, a windswept Nick Faldo design, a "tropical
links" lapped by the warm waters of the South China Sea.

• Tam Dao Golf Resort, a stunning 18 in the cool highlands northeast
of Hanoi, convenient to the airport but a world away.

• Vietnam Golf & Country Club, home to 36 pristine, otherwise private
holes just 20 minutes from downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

Since its launch in July 2007, the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail has been
featured in the New York Times
(http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09vietgolf.html), the
Asian Wall Street Journal (25 April 2008), Outside's Go magazine
(April/May 2008), Golf.com
(www.golf.com/golf/courses_travel/article/0,28136,1807251,00.html) and
other leading international publications.

To make travel plans for a tour of the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, contact
exotissimo@hochiminhgolftrail.com

For more information on the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, visit
www.hochiminhgolftrail.com

Contact: Scott Resch
Mandarin Media
84.93.848.1821
sresch@mandarinmedia.net