Buffalo Swing

The Laguna Golf Lang Co in Vietnam is quite unlike any golf course in the world. Not because the 18-hole course designed by Nick Faldo lets you golf in the vicinity of tropical jungles, sand dunes and rice paddies, but because you get to meet its green keepers: a family of water buffaloes.

"We are pretty sure it's a first in this part of the world," says golf director Adam Calver about father Tu Phat, mother Chi Chi and their calf, Bao, who tend four-hectares of rice fields located right in the middle of the course. The bovine threesome help to manage the paddies by eating excess weeds and crops in the area that would otherwise require machinery and manpower to…