Those two numbers are the whole reason this trip happened. Every July our golf group chat has the same argument: it is too hot to play, and we play anyway, and someone threatens to quit golf entirely around the twelfth hole. This year Tony ended the argument by posting a screenshot of the Dalat forecast with the caption "there is a town in the mountains where it is 22 degrees, and it has three golf courses."

Four of us went — me, Tony, Rich and Sam, combined age roughly 190, combined handicap best not discussed. We had it set up as one package through TGROUP: three nights, three rounds on three different courses, private car the whole way, and a guide who met us at Lien Khuong airport holding a sign with Tony's name spelled almost right. A little over 22 million dong each for the land part. Nobody in our group had to organise anything, which is a miracle roughly on par with Rich making a birdie.

We landed the evening before and did nothing except eat hot soup near the market wearing jumpers, grinning at each other like idiots. Day 2 was the big one, Dalat Palace, and the fog got there first. The starter pushed us back about forty minutes, so we stood on the range drinking artichoke tea, watching the pines appear out of the grey one by one. I was annoyed for roughly five minutes and then decided a fog delay is a much better story than heat stroke.

The course itself is the old one — the starter told us it goes back to 1922 and that the last emperor used to play here. I can't verify any of that and I don't want to, it's a better morning if you just believe him. What I can verify: the greens are bentgrass — everybody on the property tells you within five minutes that they're the only ones like it in the region — and my usual lag putt came up six feet short all morning until the caddie started giving me a look. Proper elevation changes too, nothing flat about it. I had a 92 and felt like I'd earned every shot for once.

Sam Tuyen Lam is twenty-odd minutes out of town by the lake, down in a valley of pine forest, and when we arrived the mist was still sitting on the water and none of us said anything clever for a while, which for this group is the highest possible compliment. There's a monastery somewhere across the lake. You can't see it. It doesn't matter.

Two warnings. One: the dew — our caddies turned up in wellies and they were right and my shoes were wet by the third hole. Two: the pines are not decorative. They lean in on half the fairways and they keep what they catch. I donated three balls to the forest, Rich gave it five and has started calling it charity work. Between the trees it's the prettiest golf we played all trip, and the quietest — we barely saw another group until lunch.

Last day, The Dalat at 1200 — the name is the altitude, the scorecard says twelve hundred metres and credits the design to Kyi Hla Han. Up there the ball flies further than it has any right to. The caddie kept saying "one club less" and she was right every single time except the times I ignored her, which she noted. Big white bunkers, long views over the water, one short drizzle that passed before we'd finished arguing about whether to shelter. I had a 94 that felt like an 88, which is the altitude talking, and I'm letting it talk.

The one design flaw of the whole tour: the last putt drops around one o'clock and the airport comes straight after. You fly home in the trousers you played in. Pack accordingly, or play slower.

Final numbers, since this whole thing started with numbers: Dalat in July, 9 out of 10. My putting on bentgrass, 4 out of 10. Trousers on the flight home: damp. The group chat has already voted to come back and nobody threatened to quit golf once, which has literally never happened in July.

If your group chat has the same annual argument about the heat, this is the answer to it. We used TGROUP — they only really do golf trips, and they had the courses, hotel, car and guide sorted before we'd agreed on a departure date. Tell them you want the cool-weather one, and how many rounds your knees can actually take.