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MAID Renewal 2024 – The Journey Begins

So here it is again.

I don’t know if anybody is still reading this. I feel like a traveller in the outer reaches of the solar system, entering the Oort Cloud, writing this for my posterity that if I should die one day, someone would realize how much torture I had to endure year in year out dealing with this f-ing mess called the Malaysian Immigration. I swear if there was a sport called Inefficiency and Absolutely Hopelessness for Civil Service and Humanity – we win the Gold Medal. The silver belongs to a group of rabid racoons nibbling cocaine in the middle of the amazon jungle.

So, now I am left with two choices. Remember the bloody MyEG? Apparently they have gotten their act together, according to my father in law and the maid renewal is back online. However, I feel like it’s a toxic relationship. As in an abusive one you know. Everytime we think MyEG is going to change and become the caring service it was meant to be, we get betrayed by some shitty experience. I don’t know.

The e-PLKS didn’t fare much better, but I thought, hell, let’s just give this new gal a try right. First year relationships generally ain’t easy.

So this year should in theory be easier because there is no renewal of the contract, as well as no renewal of passport, as well as no return to phillipines for my maid.

So Fomema, fomema.

Largely the same. Head to https://portal.fomema.my/, register, and get the clinic selected and then just go to the clinic. My maid and I are so good at this already that I just drop her off, and then organize the travel to the nearby x-ray through Grab and to get home with Grab. No more wasting my time waiting. She and I are like Simon and Garfunkel of Fomema.

Fomema is good now – after about a week, the status turns to “SUITABLE” and now I am all go.

So go to https://imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/.

Click on Permohonan Lanjutan PRA (after login, and thank God I have the login already from last year)

Click on The link for your maid

Click on the tab Muat Naik Dokumen

The problem is the drop down list only has “Pas Khas (Jika Perlu)” and nothing else. It was supposed to have option for two : the passport detail page and your permit page. Both missing.

So don’t panic, I just selected Pas Khas for both documents and uploaded. The stupid system only allows 250kb to be uploaded (no doubt due to the stinginess of storage). So unfortunately, their original pass document is around 350KB so ironically, this system CANNOT ACCEPT THEIR OWN DOCUMENT.

Clap hands. Malaysian inefficiency gold medal.

I had to take screenshot and paste it on another word document, convert it into PDF and make it smaller than 250kb. What if it was my mother who knows nothing about PDF conversion? Will she be forever stuck in this loop where the damn system disallows the very document they gave to be submitted back again. It’s like a mother, after being given her new born baby, only to toss it into the garbage bin. Yes. This is e-plks.

So now I just cetak the slip Akuan penerimaan and wait for the next step. To be updated soon!

Update 26 August: So after a few days, recheck the eplks website and under status permohonan, you should be able to see “Permohonan Telah Diluluskan.
Sila Teruskan Pembayaran”.

Checkbox the selection and in the tiny box in the right hand top of the table, click “Bayar”. The price is RM631, which I suppose is similar to MyEG. Easy enough to pay, online banking and we’re done.

The status will change to “Bayaran telah dibuat”. So far so good.

Update 28 August: Wow.

Impressed.

In 2 days after payment, I checked the site again and guess what, unbelievably, the status has changed to: “Muat Turun ePass”

In 2 days.

This is beyond what I can imagine and I must say, if you can get past the initial nightmare of getting the access to E-PLKS, the entire process of maid renewal is absolutely painless. No more souless interaction with MyEG that adds zero value and takes weeks to do shit that can be done in 2 days. 2. Days.

Now next year might be different  because its the renewal of the contract and then she is flying back home, but for this year, amazingly, from fomema visit to clinic to getting the VISA: less than a week.

Well Done, Malaysia. Syabas indeed.

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Maid Renewal Plus Contract – 2023 version – Part 1

Wow!

It has been ages since the last update on this site!

Have I died? Nope. Still golfing? Yes? Still shit at it? YES! I am eternally struggling at this damn game – incremental improvements, accompanied by major setbacks and horrible de-provements. I think me aging doesn’t help. Just massively struggling with my irons now.

Anyways, this isn’t really about golf, this is more on the updates on 2023 and how I managed to get my maid renewed. This is also the dreaded year where I need to update her contract. OK, let’s start with the first obvious issue.

a) Fomema Process – No changes here. In fact, kudos to fomema, they seem to be more or less sorted out their system quite well by now. No fuss, I like what they do, its all online, go to doctor, go to x-ray and done.

b) MyEG – this is where the biggest problem is. THE BIGGEST. Simply put, on the 29th of July, I went into MyEG portal as usual, and clicked on Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia. As usual, everything was done as how it has always been, and I went ahead to pay my RM631 as usual and waited. And Waited. And Waited. After two weeks, I called them as usual and asked them if my maid passport was ready. The reply was: “Not yet, our system is under maintenance at the moment.” So I said, OK, fine, we’re still early days. August right? End of August, I called again and once more, they say, “We are still in maintenance.”

Now, we all know maintenance windows are just that: windows. When your window is a full month to maintain, unless you are maintaining a nuclear spaceship going to Saturn, this generally means “We don’t know what the hell we are doing, so we will just say ‘maintenance’ to our stupid customers and tell them to wait.”

It’s VERY disingenuous and it goes to show how this company is managed top to bottom. Later on, I found out that they no longer offer immigration service renewal to maids but yet offered that service, and also worse, process payment! It’s like me going into a pizza shop, ordering a pizza, waiting for two hours and they tell me its on its way, and after 2 hours, tell me they actually don’t sell Pizza here, they only do mee goreng. W.T.F, MyEg. And worse, instead of giving me back my money and kick me out of their mee goreng store, they decide to KEEP the money, kick me out and tell me to come back 3 months later to see if I can still hope to collect my money.

So, if you are ever caught in this trap of giving them money, you need to write to them via email and also on facebook and ask them specifically, when will they give back the money they knowingly took for a service that they no longer offer? Going to the website now, at the very least, they have taken down this fake service of theirs finally, probably due to the tons of complaints from the public.

So now, the problem is, MyEG left me on a lurch. I started the process end of July and it was almost September that I began to figure out that MYEG is not coming good on their promise and decided to ditch them instead of waiting (as they suggested. DO NOT WAIT! They have no qualms about you suffering because they don’t give a shit about customers).

So, now it’s time to deal with the dreaded Immigration DIRECTLY. It’s hard enough dealing via MyEG, but from here on, its us and our arch enemy.

So, lets go to https://imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/plks/welcome

Get yourself registered and then you will find an email welcoming you, You might want to just delete this message as these guys just print out your password in clear text, which kinda shows that their system is actually either storing your password in cleartext or their admin at the very least has access to your password. I would seriously consider changing the password to something that you do not use for other services.

Once you are registered, go to https://imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/plks/doc/e-PLKS_Manual_Pengguna.pdf and head on down to the part where it states “A-1-2-4 PERMOHONAN LANJUTAN e-PLKS (PEMBANTU RUMAH)”. These are the instructions I followed and I managed to upload the necessary documents, i.e the passport as well as the current non expired visa. I am not sure what procedure it would be IF the visa was expired and thank God I didn’t wait for MyEG to come back to me.

Now where the  instruction is incorrect is that it stated that once you have submitted the documents, you need to go over to the immigration for further instructions. There is no need for that. Your maid under your name will turn to blue for pembayaran. Once you pay, then the status will turn to “Cetak Resit”. This is where the issue begins.

I waited a full 2 weeks before noticing that the status never changes. Trying to call them is impossible. So I thought I was being smart and headed to Shah Alam Immigration (PKNS) at around 8.30 am in the morning.

Bad Mistake.

That place is like Hell.

I mean, without the fire. But if Hell was to be without fire, it would be Shah Alam Immigration.  You go there and you have a few thousand souls waiting in line, their lifeless eyes just staring vacantly into emptiness as they are questioning the decisions that were made in life to bring them to this shithole. I know, I was there. I waited. And you are literally waiting to get to the ‘pertanyaan’. Yes, I’ve documented my nightmare experience previously and NOTHING HAS CHANGED. In fact, it probably got worse. Malaysia is absolute garbage when it comes to civil service and I am not blaming the civil servants, god knows they know they are serving garbage and they are also suffering as well. It’s the overall top management, the ministers, the people who only make noise during election but when it comes to actual implementation, they take a rusted plier to take out their wisdom tooth.

I tried calling the hotline and after trying several times managed to get through and I asked about my resit status. They then gave me another number to call and I called, and got a nice enough fellow who after speaking to me for a few minutes claim that he is just a call center and he can’t do anything. WTF.

By now, I have decided to walk down to my car, which was parked at the side of the road.

My car had disappeared.

Apparently, the MBSA (City Council) of Shah Alam is super efficient. If you park at the side of the road for 15 minutes, they will tow your car away. The irony wasn’t lost to me, that on one hand you had the worst efficient people in the immigration and on the other hand, MBSA are like sharpshooters shooting turkeys when it comes to doing their job.

I got into Grab and went over to the compound, paid RM150 and collected my car. I even complimented the officer there, saying, I wish MBSA would take over the cursed immigration service, since they are so deadly efficient.

Giving up going to the hellhole, I then tried my hand in trying to email again to no avail, call again but never could get through and finally went over to Facebook. Joining ePLKS Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia turned out to be a lifesaver. Everyone there is super helpful, like banded refugees helping each other out to fight the common enemy – the absolute tools sitting in Immigration. I was adviced to go to https://eapp.imi.gov.my/tanya/create, the SPO (Sistem Pertanyaan Online) and put in my request there stating that I have paid and am just waiting. It’s pretty good – because when it is NOT DOWN, you can put in your statement and request there. It seems this is the only channel to escalate, and after a week from my first request, finally, finally, you will see “Muat Turun Epass”!!

Click on it and you get a beautiful PDF that you just need to print and just slot it in to your maid’s passport (apparently). No need to stick anymore it seems.

So this is where I’ve gotten – the Visa is renewed, the passport is ready, the maid is ready, and I’ve also gotten the template for the contract and affidavit of undertaking, photostated my IC, my maid’s passport and copy of visa, gotten the stamp from lawyer for the contract and affidavit. Because my maid is headed back home this year, the booking ticket and flight, as well as the old contract and lastly registration of SOCSO and payment of SOCSO proven.

So now, all that’s left is for the maid to head over to POLO (Philippines Overseas Labor Office) at Cheras (not at the embassy in KL!) and see if its possible to get this sorted without any more issues!

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Golf Buddy Aim W11 Review

After going back and forth on my decision as to whether getting a golf watch would help me, I decided to just pull the trigger and go for it. I am generally of the type that makes purchases based on what people say, and not so much of what I can research or compare online. Comparisons are rather simplistic for me. For a price range give and take 10-15%, what are the products out there? You have a whole bunch, and I mean a WHOLE bunch of Garmin watches – dedicated to Golf as well as the watches that are multi-sport and golf enabled. But look at the pricing – You have the Fenix Garmin at around 3k+ and even up to 4k+, S62 golf watch, Instinct Solar (RM2.5k), you go down to the next level of Vivoactive (1.6kRM), which is still hefty. Down lower still are the older versions of S62 – the S40 or S42 which you can get around 1.4k – 1.5k.

Still lower in the band (I targeted a watch under RM1k), you will get the cheaper ones like S12, S10 – which depending on your risk appetite, you could find some as low as RM500+ on Shoppee. I wouldn’t trust that too much though – probably in the region of RM700 for S10 or RM800 for S12 or RM1000 for S20. These were the ones in general I was comparing the W11 to. But W11 comes with touch screen, which the cheaper Garmin models did not have. In fact the probable comparison of the W11 would be with the S40, which I think the cheapest I could get to was around is probably 1.4k. Anything cheaper than that right now, I’d probably think twice.

So the competitor of the W11 Golf Buddy basically comes down to the S10 or S12 from Garmin, and that’s pretty much it.  Without touch screen or color display, the choice is pretty obvious. For a while there was this colorless but touch-screen enabled Bushnell ION Edge that was selling for around RM700 in Lazada but now it has shot up to 1.4k, so no thanks.

The W11 comes at around RM990 or so, or if you can get it below RM890 on occasions where there is a promotion. Either way, it’s good value for money.

This isn’t a review of the watch – other people do a whole lot heck better than me in these reviews. A very good walkthrough would be here: 

Using the W11, the primary worry was whether it would interfere with my swing. Obviously, if I was swinging like Rory McIlroy and everything is balanced to perfection, this concern would be  very well worth the weight. However, because I generally swing like a giant gibbon, it doesn’t actually matter much. In fact, after the initial discomfort, once golf started and the hacking begun, I could be wearing handcuffs on my wrist and I wouldn’t even notice.

The interface is very simple. And that’s saying a lot as I am a very simple person by nature. I don’t like too many things happening, so for W11, you basically turn it on, go to the hole, feel it buzz and you are good to go. Whack it, walk to your ball look at the primary screen to see FRONT, MIDDLE and BACK distances of the green. It doesn’t tell you the flag, so you basically have to just look at the actual flag itself and make your own decisions. However, even with this basic information, I found myself getting somewhat better in my approach shots. There is no wind calculation or elevation taken into account here, so again, you need to be slightly experienced in golf to address these things.

Other than that, it does a few other items like measuring your shot distance (but you need to remember to turn it on), putting in your scores (and putts) but strangely, nothing else. It also has a rather convoluted way to measure the hole lay up distances and also hazard, which annoys the crap out of me. After looking at what the S40 does, I begin to see why this W11 cost so much lesser, the interface isn’t that intuitive after all.

During the game, I found myself using it a lot – in fact, almost every stroke except chipping and putting. The simple distance to green is primarily used 95% of the time. I hardly tinker around with the other features, except for after the whole to input my score and the number of putts I did.

What are some of the issues?

Let’s drill down to it.

a) GPS takes a LONG time to detect the course

While this may sound like a problem with all GPS watches, it annoyed me when I teed off at KGNS first hole and the damn watch was still searching for the GPS. It was a cloudy day, yes, so it’s probably the reason. I was halfway through my par 5 when the watch sorted out it’s GPS and told me to go to the tee box to start the game. Not cool.

b) The software is completely crap

Golfbuddy didn’t put a lot of effort into making a good software. One – the mobile app is absolutely garbage. It didn’t do anything and as of today, I was put on notice that they were dumping the old app and created a new one called One Caddie which looked a lot better. BUT. You need to pay for it. Like RM14 per month. Isn’t the whole point of getting this damn watch is to NOT pay for caddies, virtual or human otherwise?

So, screw the mobile app.

Golf buddy comes also with a clunky Golf buddy course manager, which is an application installed on your laptop, designed to update courses and what not. The interface isn’t pretty and looked like it was developed back in the early 2000s, which it probably was. However, it does a few things – one, it can update courses for your device. So you need to plug the watch into the USB using the charging dock and press “Connect to GB Manager” on the watch screen.

Sometimes, it doesn’t trace the watch so you just need to restart it again.

Aside from doing a course update, it also allows you to automatically update the score of your rounds. However, we come to the next issue:

c) The software requires manual input

Because the watch itself only tracks your score and also number of putts, you need to have a few things in mind:

  • Remembering whether you hit the fairway or not, and if you missed, whether you miss left or right
  • Remembering if you were playing from the bunker or not on each hole

Now, this obviously is annoying because I generally have very low recollection of what the heck is happening in the round. I mean who remembers every shot they hit anyway? So you generally just end up randomly keying in stuff that doesn’t really reflect anything. I am sure the Garmin has ways of actually tracking where on earth you are in the golf course and is able to take into account whether you are playing off the fairway or from the bunker.

d) I don’t like the hole layouts

Aside from the basic distance to the green, the other two areas we should easily be able to check is – distance to hazards (and basically layup / crossing distance) and also distance to any part of the course (in general, to the 100 meter mark for instance). Often in golf, we aren’t hitting the green on a par 5 on our second shot. Instead we also do not want to hit the 3 wood to somewhere 40-50 meters for the awkward approach. We want to reach the 100 meter marker so we can take a full approach wedge into the green. I think the W11 can do it but it does so in a very confusing manner.

Once you swap right, you are faced with this nice looking illustration. They call it the dual arch method or whatever. In the above illustration, we can see around 150 we are reaching the water (red arch). The blue arch is basically the distance from the green. So the question here is – how far should I hit the ball in order to get to the 150 marker?

There are some mental gymnastics needed here but overall, it’s just annoying that it’s not so easy to do like the Garmin. The Garmin just says, if you want to hit to 100 meters, you need to hit 162 meters. That’s it. None of this graphical bullshit that looks nice but can’t give you what you need without going through mathematics.

To give it credit though, the Hazard interface is a lot better – it gives good information to the front of the hazard, the back of the hazard and whether its on the left or right of the hole (in case there are multiple bunkers).

e) Shot distance is not great

I don’t get how difficult it is to implement an automatic shot distance count. When you have hit the shot – just track that we are now walking to the ball. That’s it, and then give an automatic distance on it and ask if we want to save it as a drive. After all, that’s all there is to it. Instead, W11 requires us to navigate to the ‘shot distance counter’, turn it on, and then start walking to the ball. How many times will we even remember doing this at all? It’s voted the most useless feature, because you can’t even store the distance to your scorecard. At least, provide us with a way to input drive distances on fairways so we can brag about our average drives!

Conclusion

I think overall, at under RM1k, it’s probably the best option out there for you. If you don’t mind coughing up a few hundred more, the S40/S42 of Garmin is probably a better product out there. The W11 tries pretty hard to give the features more expensive watches are giving and for the most part, it does deliver. Distances are fairly accurate and matches the distance we see in our range finders. While the software is clunky, it does its job in a fair manner. The tri-color straps are pretty ugly but at least they recognise it and provide you with a plain black strap.

Looks wise – it’s actually quite functional. I like the single button concept (although in a year or two, I would imagine this button completely broken and the watch non-functional). The different faces of the watch is also something you can change – all aren’t pretty but at least it gives you something to alter. And the watch itself actually looks reasonably nice – and not bulky like a typical sports watch. It’s something certainly wearable for occasions like a casual dinner or even more formal meetings.

Battery wise it’s quite durable – without playing golf, it can last for days, and for golf, I think around 2 rounds is easily possible.

A note on the charger. Plugging the charger into a random charging port or adapter sometimes will cause the watch to complain it has stopped charging due to it overheating. The adapter I found works is AC Input 100-240v ~ 200mA and output 5v – 1A.

Do I recommend the watch? Yes, if you are looking at anything sub 1k for golf, I don’t think there is a better option out there. But if you have some cash to spend, I think the Garmin s40 onwards is probably a better purchase, based on other reviews I am seeing.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 – The Final Chapter

So.

Here I am. At the final part of this neverending Chronicle and my war against the overlords of inefficiencies, the dreaded Malaysian Immigration.

I left my home at 7.15 am to journey to Shah Alam PKNS for one last duel with this foul institution of neglect. Reached at around 7.45 and finally got my place in the queue to take the number and at around 7.55 am I was seated. So far so good – they actually officially open at 8 am but apparently they let you in early, so keep that in mind. By 8.20 the room was filling up and finally it was my turn. I thought we could end it within an hour or so.

The lady took all my documents plus the passport, cursorily looked at it, tapped a few things on her computer and then passed back to me and told me to pay. She said, take a number to pay.

I looked at the queue, the same queue I was in earlier, but now snaking its way along the corridor. Excuse me? I have to take a queue? Again? What’s wrong with my current number?

Yes, you need to go all the way back in line to take a DIFFERENT queue number in order for you to pay.

This is by far, the stupidest procedure of all time. Stupidest. Whichever imbecile that came up with this procedure deserves an award for being the biggest moron of all time, should be shot, hung and dried in the public square. But it was so expected (moronic procedures) of our Malaysian Civil Service, that’s it would have been absolutely shocking if they came up with a procedure that made sense or that reflected any signs of intelligence higher than an amoeba. Like for instance, transferring the same queue number you have in your hand to the payment queue. Or have another queue machine at hand to provide a fresh queue number for payment. Or just write the goddamn number onto a toilet paper. I mean, there could be a billion ways to resolve it but Malaysia chooses the absolute, most stupid way to solve it. This is because its the Immigration’s KPI to have as long queues as possible and as many people as possible sardined into a small non-ventilated room in order to show that they are ‘busy’ and ‘hard at work’. And it speaks volumes to the absolute idiocy of our civil service procedures – the ultimate shithousery to give to tax paying citizens. Its like they came up with these procedures while taking a dump.

To beat this god forsaken procedure, I would recommend the moment you get your first queue number, to immediately go back into the same queue again (which would have been built up) and then when you reach the front, just pretend that you have already gone through the first queue number and now you have to go for payment. Ask for payment queue number. They will give it to you. They won’t recognise you because they are generally not really vested in how ugly or good looking you are.  And there is absolutely zero communications between the officers. So now, you should have 2 queue numbers. By now, the first queue number should already be up, you jump right into their seat, get the lady to tap stuff on their ancient VAX computer and pretend to be frustrated when she tells you to re-queue again for payment. Then, wait for your payment queue number and voila make the payment.

Because I did not do that, I had to re-queue and then wait again – for another 2 damn hours. I observed a few things: there are 15 counters available and only 4 officers working in a room chokeful of human beings. Secondly, the payment counter is ONLY ONE. So it took 2 hours to go through number 14 people.  Also, the payment counter is not just for payment. Apparently it’s also for enquiry and such. Thirdly, the guy behind the counter takes his own sweet time to press for the next number. After completing one person, he sits there, staring powerfully at all of us pathetic idiots looking at him, imploring him to press the button so the number can switch.

Malaysia Immigration – you are the champion in shithousery.

I paid RM221 – Credit card only accepted, so don’t expect e-wallet or cash – and the officer said to me, “Normally, how long do you need to wait?”

I was a bit stunned. I wanted to say, “How the hell would I know?” but apparently he thinks I do this everyday for my living. I just shrugged, unsure what to answer.

He said brusquely, “Come back around an hour and go straight to Counter 15.”

And so, around 1.5 hours, a breakfast and a Teams Meeting later, I came back and went straight to counter 15. Apparently, there is no process here to collect. You just walk straight up to the counter, in front of all the disapproving looks of the people sitting down there like idiots waiting for instructions. You just ask the officer , I am here to collect passport of maid.

And he will ask your name, and pass to you the passport – the new one now has a VISA permit on it. Oh, if you had a passport cover before, it will be gone, because apparently they need to remove it to put the permit, and they never bothered to put it back. I rather wrap the passport in used diapers than to pass the passport back to these group of people to get the passport cover. No way.

I said thank you and actually bowed obsequiously like a Japanese, received it with two hands as if I am being awarded the Order of the British Empire from the Queen. They failed to appreciate my sarcasm and I scrambled away from this hellhole as quickly as possible.

There is a form for feedback below, I suggest all of us go into it and give an honest review of this service.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfm3oFALJ21Jb5TD5e409Z2xOQ3ydxqjJjFBCp8aIquw6EeLw/viewform?usp=sf_link

In CONCLUSION:

a) Go to the Immigration where your IC number and permit address is – if KL, then DUTA, if PJ, then PKNS Shah Alam.

b) Don’t go in the afternoon – go early in the morning. It officially opens at 8 am but loiter there from 7.40 am onwards. They may open early. Once they do, rush to the lift, kick anyone else who follows you in it and run like a mad dog to the office for foreign workers. I would give you directions but the whole area is crazy confusing. So just give in to your instinct and ask the Lord to lead the way to the right room.

c) Once there, take up the queue number for ‘kemaskini’ – which means modifying the passport. Immediately go behind the queue again and once in front again, ask for a payment queue number even if you haven’t kemaskini yet. If the officer recognises you, pretend you have an epileptic attack or just state you have a twin.

d) Remember to have all your documents at hand. Photostat your maid’s old passport front page and permit page, the new passport front page, YOUR IC front and back, bring your actual IC as well, bring your credit card for payment and ensure you have two documents:

  1. Permohonan Kemaskini Dokumen Pembantu Rumah – This document is as rare as golden bird shit. Apparently it cannot be found online, including their own stupid website> I got mine from the officer from Duta during one of my forays there. I’ve posted the jpg here in case you desperately need it:
  2. You need to write a ‘Surat Permohonan’. I wrote mine in English and it’s as follows:

Date

Immigration Department of Malaysia

To whom it may concern,

I, <your name>, IC No: <your IC> would like to request that the permit of my current house maid, <maid name> (OLD Passport No: <old passport no>) to be moved to her new passport number <new passport no>.

Thank you

<Sign here>

<Your name>

<your IC> <your contact>

d) After this, wait for your payment, make your payment and wait for around an hour before barging your way through the wall of people to counter 15 and say you are here to collect.

That’s it. Hopefully I never need to face these jokers again for the next ten years (my maid passport expiry), which by then, hopefully this ancient practice of mental torture and abuse called Malaysian Immigration will be improved for the sake of the generation to come.

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Do You Have The Balls for Golf?

When I first started this game almost 20 years ago, I never thought it mattered which golf ball you would play. To me, a ball was a ball. That was it. No one golf ball was better than the other, especially since I lacked so much fundamental of play – I can’t even hit the bloody ball, let alone decide which ball is better than the other. If it’s got dimples, I will hit it. That sounded a bit crass.

Over the first few years, from picking up random balls off the road, I developed an affinity to one brand in particular: MAXFLI. I just loved the font over the ball and teeing up with the bold MAXFLI word made me feel comfortable for some unknown and unscientific reason.

Look at that. That’s absolutely smashing.

I would use REDMAX as well and then later on, the MAXFLI REV and Fire series but by then the logo/font had changed to this stupid font

Which is kind of ugly, because X in golf means you didn’t finish the hole and you gave up because you suck. Having such a huge emphasis on the X just makes me super uncomfortable over the ball, like a premonition that this ball is going to go OB – which invariably it does.  The previous logo with the A being the emphases was well done.

By and by, I couldn’t source the MAXFLI balls anymore as my second hand ball seller, Mr Selan from KRPM slowly moved his way into the next life selling balls to angels playing golf up in the great unknown. I used to order 100 Maxfli balls in batches from him. Also, he told me that MAXFLI was getting more rare and suggested I move on to another brand like Wilson. He passed his business to his son, I believe, before I also faded from the scene around 10 years back as I stopped playing on Saturdays due to my young family.

I continued using random second hand balls after that, using whatever I still had in my cache of Maxfli and others. I opted to store my Maxflis more when I found out how difficult it was to get them. A few years back, I started using the Inesis 500 balls just because they were cheap and brightly colored. I was using an Inesis 500 soft ball when I shot 80 at the Mines a few years ago. However, after a while I noticed an alarming distance decrease whenever I used it, compared to other balls. It was then I began to take it more seriously – whether the ball I was using was indeed suitable or not.

I found a seller from LAZADA after that “Sports Direction” selling used Srixon Z star -XV and Z Star for around RM38 for 10. Which is a very good deal as these balls were excellent golf balls and I began using them – sometimes he had a Q-Star or TriStar in there and I used it with noticeable improvements around the driving and greens.

But they shut shop about a year back so I had to source out my balls again. I decided to just get new balls moving forward. I started with the cheaper ones like Srixon Soft Feel and Bridgestone extra soft because they come in Yellows. Played very well with them, I highly recommend the Soft Feel, for some reason, it flies incredibly straight. The Bridgestone one was surprisingly good around the green, but for driving, Srixon was very good.

I then purchased The Titleist Velocity ball which was basically the successor of the NXT.

It was touted as the longest golf ball ever and boy were they right. The Velocity was amazing to play with for a distance ball. Because I generally hit the ball short of green and try to roll it in, I didn’t need a high spin ball. I needed a ball to get down the fairway 230-250 meters. The only problem with Velocity was the price tag. At more than RM11 PER BALL, I was cursing everytime I lost the damn ball. I lost 2 at Sungai Long and One at KGNS. It’s frustrating because it was so expensive and I would be going all around looking for it.

I then purchased the Callaway Warbird which, at around RM6.50 per ball which made a bit more sense to the game I play. It’s still pretty long but for some reason I just feel the Velocity was further by a bit. Either way, both doesn’t come close to Srixon Soft Feel for straight flight.

So now, I would have a Srixon Soft Feel and one of the distance balls (Warbird or Velocity) with me. If the hole did not have hazards or was not narrow I would take up the distance balls. For holes where losing the ball may be a higher percentage, or a par 3, I whip out the yellow Srixons.

Either way, check these balls out , because as a hacker, I would strongly recommend against buying stuff like Pro V1 or Pro V1x until we get our game down to single handicap.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 Part 5

Update 7 July 2022: So I decided to use my lunch break to head over to Shah Alam PKNS building to see if I can sort this nightmare maid passport scenario once and for all. Its a long drive but I finally reached there, found a parking and found myself wandering around the hallways of this immigration, reminiscent of a rat looking for its way around a maze. This twisted building is even worse than the DUTA, because this just has hallways and a cacophony of human noises and human smells. It feels surreal than in 2022, we are still floundering in such terrible conditions for immigration.

I finally sourced where the maid renewals were done and duly queued again, and after around 40 minutes, I finally got to the front. What irritated me second most was that the person behind absolutely had no sense of personal space. You know those morons that stand draped over your shoulder and when you move forward in the queue, they just step next to you like they want to smell your ass? So I had a moron behind me breathing down on me, as if if he stood nearer to me, he could then be merged with me as a single human and he can get to skip one person in this God-forsaken queue in this God-forsaken hellhole called Immigration. Second most. Because what irritated me most was what followed.

Finally reached the immigration officer, a young man who had a sneering look on his face of a man who, at this young age, had lost all hope of any life renewal and now faced the next 40 years of his working life suffering behind this soulless institution called Malaysian Immigration Department. I explained to him and he said, “Yes, this is the correct queue.”

Before I could respond and celebrate, he continued, “But we are out of Queue Numbers. Come back again another time.”

It’s 2 pm. On a work day. They close at 5. There is 3 more hours of actual work hours. And you now say you can’t service because of no more queue number. What Godless country are we living in, that at 2 pm, these buggers called Immigration would mail it in and say, no more queue number.

NO MORE QUEUE NUMBER? In the year 2022??!

I looked at him incredulously and he just looked back in his dimly lit eyes, bereft of any empathy, sympathy or general signs of actual life. I felt, truly and I am not demeaning his work – I really really felt that I was talking to a zombie, or a soulless person. Because I knew whatever I said, was meaningless and he would only repeat himself. There was no processing capability, no ability to say other things or explain anything, just a mindless “No more queue number.”

I asked him, “What time do you guys run out of queue numbers?” – paraphrasing, “When does your lazy ass actually do any work?”

And I could swear, he gave a smirk of satisfaction, an almost sneering, inyourface you sonofab*tch useless citizen of Malaysia look to me, and half spat, half spoke :- “Morning, just queue early in the morning.”

This is Malaysia. And we all wonder why we get hated so much by Malaysians, Singaporeans, Zimbabweans and all citizens of this known world and also any unknown aliens not found yet in our galaxy. This is truly the most inept, useless, bottom of the barrel sort of service we’ve come to expect from our immigration.

The irony is that, the IC department is very good and everyone has great reviews. It’s almost as if the IC department is the blue eye department of the whole ministry, while the maid passport division is where all the $hit officers flow to like a diarrhea purge of the body. It doesn’t matter if you are from the Duta or Shah Alam or anywhere else, the immigration is truly a nightmare to deal with. I rather wish a thousand deaths by quartering on someone that to have to deal with the Immigration department of Malaysia.

So another day, another time loss, and still nothing to show for it. The war against the ever invincible Immigration Department continues.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 Part 4

So, after six months, I’ve decided to take on this monumental challenge to continue this game against the Malaysian Immigration – the impossible task to renew my maid permit/passport.

So far, to recap the previous season of this Squid Game competition with the Immigration – I successfully, renewed the contract, tackled the terrible mess of the Philippines government online booking, navigated through the embassy and getting my maid contract renewed and her passport sorted, with the new visa permit on her extended old passport. We also went and collected the new passport. So now I have the old passport with the valid permit and the new passport. These are not easy tasks. But these will be considered a walk in the park compared to what is to come, that is to put the new passport into Malaysia’s immigration system and move the permit from old passport to new. For that, I need to look into:

Defeating the Malaysian Immigration Department. The Bane of all Efficiencies, the Destroyer of Hope, the Betrayer of Good Service, the Devastator of Time, the Unholy Master of all that is Good in this Country, the Forsaken Overlords of the Queues and all that is absolutely Useless In Malaysia. They are the very definition of Malaysia’s government service, which has a the highest ratio of waiting for service to human lifespan found in the entire Universe and Heaven and Hell.

The first foray to defeat this Ruthless Monster, I went to the Duta immigration. I didn’t really know what to do actually. I tried to get an appointment through their immigration website. https://www.imi.gov.my/. Firstly, because the website has been actually designed by gerbils, the navigation makes no sense. In fact, it’s easier to navigate Dante’s Nine Circle of Hell compared to the site. No where will we find any useful information. And each page is designed to put the reader to sleep, with tons of absolutely garbage information that serves zero purpose. So I don’t know. I couldn’t get any appointment so Trusting in the Lord Almighty to give me strength and faith, I took up the two passports of my maid (the old one with the visa and the new one) and went bravely to the imposing fortress of this Monster – the Duta Immigration in KL (opposite Publika).

I already had my share of nightmares getting my passport sorted earlier. In fact, I wake up in cold sweat at night still, tormented by dreams of falling into a neverending queue of silent screaming humans waiting for eternity. Seeing the building still puts me into shivers.

I bravely went up and yes, there was a queue in front of the passport section for helpers. It’s right opposite the passport renewal for Malaysians, which had its own queue snaking down the countryside and far into the abyss. For my queue, it wasn’t supremely bad. Just about an hour.

So after one hour, I managed to snake my way all the way to the front. I explained to the absolutely disinterested officer that I need to do this and that for my maid and she just pressed the queue button, Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie playing in her mind, no doubt. She pressed, pressed. And pressed again. I finally saw life sparkling in her eyes as she looked up, unsure what to do, as this was out of her SOP to press button. The Automaton spoke, “Oh. Nasib you tak baik.”

This meant, “Oh you are unlucky.”

It’s not something you want to hear. Not after you waited in queue. It’s like The Angel Michael saying that once you reach the Pearly Gates and about to enter Heaven. That’s just not cool.

I asked her what happened. She explained, well the queue machine is broken. It’s hanging. So I asked her what to do. She just chuckled and she went off. For a long time. So now everyone behind me, all 50 people are looking at me disapprovingly, thinking that I was causing the ruckus with a silly request. All of them tapping their foot, grumpily looking at me and wishing me death and dishonor to my family name. DAMN IT WOMAN! Release me from this HELL OF WAITING!

After 15 minutes, which I have picked up my phone and stared intently at the blank screen to neutralise all the cruel stares I am receiving, she returned. This time with an accomplice. They fretted a bit over this cursed machine and finally got it to work, much to the significant relief of everyone waiting. We were all ready to Hi-five each other, the way that the movies show when the rocket to space is launched successfully and the asteroid the size of Brazil hurtling to earth has been destroyed. Great perils share this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers – so say the great Victor Hugo. We were strangers no more, we were survivors of the dreaded beast of Malaysian Immigration. We have slewed the wicked —

“Oh. Ini tak boleh guna.”

So sayeth the Automaton behind the counter. This is where the rocket crashes and burns to a billion pieces and everyone in the launch room stares at the screen in utter horror.

What does she mean?

She explained, in rebooting the queue system, the whole number has been mixed up and now she would have to manually work out which is next in line to those who had already taken the queue number. She said ‘already taken’ in a significant sort of way, that I needed to ask what she meant.

She sighed and told me, you can’t take the queue number anymore. It’s over. All of us waiting, especially you poor devil who had come all the way to the front – you need to go home, rest, recuperate and come fight this injustice and sorry excuse of a government another day.

In the year 2022, when I was a kid, I thought we would see hovercrafts, hoverboards, and flight to the moon. Instead I now witnessed an even greater event – time travel. We have been magically transported back to 1962, before any system was invented, where people would just have to wait in queue like a lottery number praying to the gods that lightning does not come and kill you. There was no backup plan. There was no business continuity. The entire country’s backbone for immigration is dependent on a shitty little queue system that if rebooted meant the end of all service.

What the Fuzzballs.

Malaysia, you have outdone yourself. This is me slowclapping you. I couldn’t even be furious with her. All over the room, there was a warning there would be a 2K fine and jail time for anyone ‘obstructing the officer from doing their job.’ which translated, if you throw a fit, tantrum, raise your voice or as much look funny at the officers, you are going to be guillotined. They have faced these tantrum throwing buggers before who had dared to challenge their inefficiency or their general lack of humanity. Throw tantrum? We’ll throw you in our dungeon, you ungrateful ba$tard!

There was nothing to do but pick up my crap and creep away, defeated.

Day 2

You would think this whole nonsense would end here. But after going through a bit of counselling and psychiatric help, I took up the courage to go again, this time, smartly going around 1.30 pm as I knew these government denizens went about their lunch from 1 to 2.

When I reached, there was already a reasonable line waiting for the lunch break to open. I duly got into line. No more waiting like an idiot.

This time, they opened their doors, we filed in like the gulags and got my queue number and sat, waited for around 15 minutes and then went to the counter and explained to the officer what I needed to do.

She took a minute or so and took my documents, passport of my maid and my IC. She passed me back and without even looking at me said, “You are from PJ, you cannot do your maid passport here. This is for KL.”

I looked behind me, half expecting a TV crew to come and say, “Gotcha!” or some sort of reality show playing pranks on me. I slowly tried to process it. I said, “Wait, I did my passport here. Right opposite. I also previously did all my maid renewal of Visa here. ” I also did my IC renewal here. My two sons, born of blood from me and now carrying my name to posterity, were registered here, their birth certificates were gotten here. If I had to die, I would want to be buried here. This was the location of my entire history of my life, this sacred piece of $hit called the Duta Immigration. How can it be that now, you, Angel of Death, play such a cruel trick?

She said, “Oh, for your passport ok. But maid passport please go Shah Alam. We cannot do it here.”

I know she can. IT cannot be that in 2022, Malaysia is still damned to be stuck in some sort of slippery timewarp where $hit cannot get done because their system is not linked/connected. I pleaded again, “Come on. There must be a way.” Why was this not highlighted in their damn website? Why was this not put as a requirement? Does the Malaysian Immigration think we are all psychics able to read their stupid policies and stupid procedures or navigate through the vomit of information contained in their dungpile of a website? How absolutely bereft of any common, uncommon, cow or goat sense is our good old Government? WHAT THE FLAMING FUZZBALLS is  going on??!

“There must be a way.” I say again. Life finds a way. There must be a way, this cannot be the end. There MUST be a way.

Yes, if I was a VIP, prime minster, a government politician or any of these slippery characters that crawl out of their holes sometimes to run our mess of a country. Yes, if I had connections or drink coffee with the Immigration bosses. But No, because I am none of these, I am condemned to lose my fight with this hell-bound creature called Malaysian Immigration again. In fact, Hell’s immigration department would probably even lose to Malaysia, that’s how good we are in torturing our tax paying citizens.

So there. 2 days wasted and nothing to show. I am defeated, I am destroyed once more. I need to rebuild my life and my shattered confidence once again. I leave, a broken shell of human who once had life, dreams and aspirations – all dashed by this wicked institution called Immigration.

To paraphrase the famed Thomas Hardy (not the actor) in his most famous novel of all: “Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with me.

Do I dare go to Shah Alam? I will let myself mentally recover for one week first before I pluck enough courage to go again. Stay tuned.

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Passport Renewal 2022

*Update 22 June 2022* – A friend of mine attested that he went at 6 pm to Duta branch and there was ZERO queue. He got in and out by 6.15 pm, new passport renewal. That is approximately 2.27% of the waiting time I bloody endured when I went in the bloody morning!!! So just read below for musings of a complete idiot.

So, my passport is expiring in October 2022 so I had the unfortunate task to go and renew my passport. After the horror stories we hear from all over, I thought it’s perhaps good to document this for posterity.

So now, for passport renewal, it’s a hybrid circumstance of renewing online and collecting offline.

The online is found at https://imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/eservices/myPasport

This may change, as time of writing is June 2022.

First, the good – the Online experience is not as excruciating as you’d think. I mean the interface does look like it’s been designed by a five year old kid assisted by his llama, but it seems to be functional, if not aesthetically resembling a dead iguana’s feces. You basically key in all the necessary information in there and I think the biggest challenge you will face is to submit in your passport ‘photo’. These days, everyone is a damn professional so , everyone (including myself) thinks we can take passport photos. I tried. And tried and tried. It’s a work of futility. It’s almost impossible to get the dimensions they want with a selfie. So, you can get someone to take for you, but you can’t have shadows. So, you need to look for the right lighting environment and… for me, I just sort of gave up and wen to the nearest photo studio, paid RM20 and got a bunch of passport photos plus the softcopy photos. After that, I took the softcopy, and in the immigration site, uploaded the softcopy as it is. There are some ‘adjustments’ you apparently need to make but don’t worry about it. You don’t need to zoom and stuff, just make sure the oval circle has your face in it. It’s auto adjusted for you post submission. In fact, I zoomed into my face thinking I was getting the right dimension and submitted – a few days later, they emailed me telling me that my photo was rejected due to dimension.

So, while the instructions are super unclear – just submit the studio shot as it is, put your face in the oval circle – which should fit, unless you have an alien-like structure head and gills on your neck – and you are done.  Select the place that you wish to pickup your passport – I selected Duta (KL Headquarters) – which might be a mistake.

Then make sure you make the payment and you will receive the receipt in your email.

Print out the receipt. They will claim that once your passport is ready you will receive another email stating so. Well, you likely will receive an email, in the next cycle of your afterlife. So, yeah, when a Malaysian government agency like immigration tells you to wait for an email, you don’t. In fact, they have already known this email nonsense is fake, because in their receipt, it actually states, if you don’t receive any email, just comelah, after 3 days.

So off I went, like a hero to Duta at around 9.30 the week after that. I went into the front door, went up the escalator and saw this HUGE queue of homo-sapiens in front of the passport office. I said, “This poor suckers must be the ones who are doing walk-ins and not aware of the online application, or just too stupid to know how to do it. Lucky I am so smart.” I sauntered up to the officer and the front and told them I already done everything and I am here to collect, can I go in?

He looked at me and did not even bother saying a word, and just nodded to the queue languidly. I am like, Yeah. But I did everything on line. I am not lining up with these losers who are walking in.

And he said, “This is the line for online collection.”

I kid you not. I was like a hobbit looking in terror as the gates of Mordor was opening and the Nazgul was flying out to eat my head. The line snaked throughout the entire floor to the next wing. It was an awesome and spectacular sight to behold, a true magnificent testimony and legacy on the slowness, inefficiency and general ineptitude of our government agency. It was terrifyingly beautiful, and encapsulated everything we love and detest about Malaysia. This is the Malaysian spirit – the ability to spit in the face of modernization, to stomp at the body of efficiency and to cackle in the presence of good governance. We dare you, modern technology and good intentions to serve the rakyat who pays their taxes – we dare you to ask us to improve from the ways that we have been doing since the stoneage. That is, line up, you useless twit, get in queue and wait for six hours to get your stupid passport done!!

Needless to say, I gave up and left.

2 weeks after that, after I have plucked enough courage again to face this dragon of incompetence, I went to the same place at 7.15 am. I was smart this time. Instead of going in the front door, I went straight to the back, walked up the staircase and quickly got in line. Yes. At 7.15 there was already a queue all the way to the next wing.

So I stood in line for 2 plus hours, before at around 9.30 I finally reached the front of the line. Congratulations you have passed the first level of this game of death by a thousand queues. The past 2 hours was the queue to take the number to the queue. Yes. It was a queue to get a queue number. W.T.F.

Received the queue number, and had close to 50 people in front of me Everyone cramming into the waiting area. Waited till around 11.30 before my turn finally came and I went there, took my thumbprints. To be fair, once you are seated with an officer, the process actually is quite short, less than 10 minutes or so they can process you. They told me to wait another hour for the passport to be processed.

So you still have your queue number but it gets stuck behind another queue to get your passport. And lo and behold, I had another 50 people again in front of me.

At this point, I had no choice but to wait. And Wait.

Finally, at around 1 pm, they called me and it was as if St Michael himself had announced my name at the Pearly Gates. I jumped up from my stupor and went bounding over to the officer, away from all these other losers who were waiting.

They passed my passport to me (It had been available probably for some time) and asked me if I wanted a passport sleeve costing 25RM. I was afraid to say no. It was like Don Corleone asking me if I wanted to buy his protection. Of course I said yes. I was so scared if a no brought further red-tape, or backroom processing. They probably would go, “This bastard said No. Stop the passport processing. Let him wait and rot here for the next 25 hours of his life, this cheapskate idiot.”

So please, just pay whatever this officer wants you to pay and get the flaming heck out of there.

So finally, 1.30 pm I was out. A full six hours of a queue’s version of hell.

Now, how do we avoid this worse case scenario. For one, you could try to go at night. I wasn’t sure Duta was opened but the officer told me yes – just come over here around 6 and note they take a break from 7- 8 before commencing all the way to 10pm. Now this is written in June 2022. Things my have change.

Secondly, you may want to choose another office, like maybe another immigration office in a far off place like Shah Alam, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, the Moon, or the planet Arakkis. Anywhere except Duta. You maybe could face with smaller crowds there, so I made a mistake opting to take it at the most crowded office in Malaysia.

If you guys are intending to do this passport renewal, good luck and may God be with you all.

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Ode to the Blades

About six months ago, I made an impulse buy to get the Mizuno MP-20. It was a gorgeous club. Absolutely smatteringly gorgeous. If I could take out a golf club on a dinner date and movie and not be viewed as an absolute mental patient, I would.

Yes, when I played it, yes, I was expecting myself to struggle. And Lord did I struggle. The face of the mp20 is tiny. It’s daring you to improve. So I went to the range, again and again, trying to craft out my skills like a samurai going to training.

But getting better at doing something wrong is still basically a $hit way to go through life, isn’t it. I didn’t have the confidence looking down on it. I loved the thin topline. The face was another matter. When you caught it right, there’s no feeling like it.  I am not sure if its the hype of copper plating or what not, but there is a stark difference in flushing the MP20 vs my MP54. The problem was, I was flushing the MP20 one out of five attempts while the MP54 was, meh, around 3 out of 5. Big difference when faced with a 6 iron into the greens.

So finally, after another round of bad irons 2 weeks back, I decided to finally say a (temporary) goodbye to the MP20s and move back to my 54s. At least on the long irons. I couldn’t bear to remove the shorter irons because the set looks so good. DAMN IT! When we need to break up with a girl, we need to break up with a girl! What’s wrong with you, man?

Anyway, we headed to Sg Long. Sg Long is now infested with what I call “Ang Moh Infestation”. Ang Moh = Westerners. We were nicely waiting for our turn on the first teebox behind 2 flights of Westerners, when another flight zoomed in and passed us and squeezed into the tiny space between our flight and the next. We were like, “Oi, WTF? We were here, you need to queue lah! <Chinese expletives because Malaysians are too nice to curse in something the Westerners understand>”

The AngMoh got out of his cart like John Wayne with his testicles the size of Brazil and sauntered to the tee box and told his ‘organizer’ who looked a little like a shorter Don Corleone and said, “These guys are telling us to queue.” He didn’t even bother looking at us, this western son of a b…ig woman. Our inability to scold these western vermin is the reason why we got colonized in the first place.

Anyway, Don Corleone walked to us and said, they booked it through the app and told us, we should try it. Please note these guys look like octogenarians with one foot in the grave and the other foot in a sandbunker. So it was weird to see a great grandfather explaining to me they have an app to do booking. So I said, well, you are in the club and the marshal says its our turn to tee off. And he shockingly said, no, the marshal doesn’t know shit. The app knows everything and they have already paid and booked for it.

Notwithstanding this moronic explanation, and just the general air of superiority these guys went through everything and the undermining and belittling of the marshal, I asked the marshal and the marshal just muttered these westerners were ‘always like that’. He sounded like a man constantly abused mentally and defeated in his early Marshalling days and now he is just a shell of a man looking to get out an abusive relationship.

He helpfully suggested us to go to the back 9 and tee off behind another group of Westerners. This group of Ang Moh wasn’t part of the Mafia gang gathered on the front 9. When they asked, they spoke in Australian accent. So technically they weren’t Westerners. They were Easterners. So they are fine. And they were way more polite than those yahoos on the first tee.

So off we went on the back 9 of sungai Long. After the usual misses, three putts , a few duffed shots etc, I ended up with a respectable 44 with 3 pars. Could have been better, but could have been worse.

Back 9 came.

Started with a chip in birdie. Then parred the long par 5 with regulation on. Long par 3 bogey, then par 4, just a bad approach but saved bogey. Then I went on a tear of 5 pars in a row including the final hole with an approach of 180, then chip and sank in the 8 footer. It was probably the best display of 9-hole golf I’ve had in maybe the last 5 years or so, to get a +1 , 37. Final score was 9 pars , 1 birdie and a couple of double and the rest bogeys for 81. Again, I missed out the mythical 79, but hopefully I am getting close. If I were to analyse, I would say, the front 9 par 5 12th, with a 135 to the hole for regulation on and just messed up my 8 iron with a big push. Then on the par 3 14th, pulled the devil out of my 8 iron again behind a tree and ended up with a double. Then a very simple 80 meter on the par 5 18th with a sand wedge and I completely went under it and it only went 30m.  Frustrating. Those were the strokes that would have led me to the glorious 79.

My 8 irons were the MP-20. For the 54s, I never hit a bad shot all day. This included a few glorious 6 irons into the green, and 5 irons zipping to the flag.

I gave this analogy to my partner as we walked up the final hole. Going to the MP20 was like having an affair with a younger, more beautiful woman while being married to your wife. This is purely from non-experiential point of view, to give this disclaimer. So you feel awesome going out with a younger girl looking like Scarlett Johansson. However, after a few months, that feeling wanes and you wonder, why Scarlett doesn’t cook like your wife, or enjoy a simple Saturday night out with the kids, without the parties; or stop spending on useless crap in the most expensive places; or just stop dressing like her skirt is disappearing from the Thanos snap; or that annoying high pitch voice that constantly seems to ask for you to be nice to her; or those vacuous conversations about nothing that does not have any brain activity involved etc.

And you go, damn, I wish I was back with my wife.

That’s basically the analogy with my MP-20s going back to my 54s. My 54s is the comfort. It doesn’t look that good as the 20s, but it was like slipping back into your comfort drink, or an old pair of slippers. Once in my hands (except for the worn grip), and looking from it from the topline, you go, “Oh yeah, my old friend, it’s great to see you again.”

This feeling is for this round. Knowing how we play golf, who knows what will happen in the next?

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Incremental Improvements

For the 3rd and 4th game of the year, there are some incremental improvements.

Game 3 was at palm garden and again, similar to Glenmarie, started the game with very very good drives, before unravelling midway and sorting out at the end. I was +1 over the first 3 holes, with my driver very much in control; before the par 5 sent it OB. The next par 5 5th I managed to par again, and then stumbled to a bogey on the 8th when my drive hit a tree next to the tee off box. The struggle began on the back 9 when I double bogeyed 3 out of the first  4 holes , and then played the last 5 holes at +3 for a 45-46. Its a very frustrating game because the driver which was doing so well early just couldn’t keep the pace and I ended up hooking a lot of shots at the end.

The next game is at Tropicana, where we teed up in the afternoon and ended up chasing against the weather and storm. We managed to cram in 18 before 15 minutes after the end, the siren went up.

This game was much better, but started just the opposite. My driver was cold as we teed up in the West Course and pull hooked the first; and still managed a bogey. The second dogleg par 4 with a lower tier green was navigated with a par before I sent my 5 iron in the drink on the 3rd par 3. Then another par, then pulled another into the drink and escaped with a double bogey. Then pulled another on the 6th but thankfully was so bad it missed the water. Pulled my approach and just missed the water.  At this point, the driver, after 6 holes was still being sorted out and if it keeps on going like this, it would be for a long day.

And suddenly, just like that, it sorted out. It’s weird. Just as how little I know about what I am doing wrong, I have no idea what I am doing right. Boom boom boom. The last 3 holes the driver came in and started to go straight or with a baby draw or with a baby fade. Once I was on the fairway and not hacking myself out here and there, I managed to par the final 3 holes coming in , which was a par 5, par 3 and par 5.

Making the turn, I parred the 10th (east 1) which is not an easy one to do. The 11th was an absolutely missed; I hit it straight and long into the OB area when I was trying to draw it.  Bogeyed the next; then pulled my approach for the par 5 into the water after another great drive. Then from there on, my driver was just booming straight and long, and I parred 3 of the 5 holes coming back, including a sand save at the end. Overall, the game of Tropicana was much more in control; especially once the driver was ticking. I am getting a lot better with my irons – even though there is an occassional duff and mishit due to the difficulty of the blades – but the chipping and putting also was a big factor to my final score of 87.

The putting has absolutely improved. Eversince adopting the lefthand-low technique, it has does wonders to the game. Where previously those jarring 3 footers or 5 footers would have me shaking, I am able to sink all within 3-4 feet today. It sounds pathetic sure – but it does wonders to you psyco when you are able to hit those. Any hackers will be able to attest to that.

The iron play is still WIP – I no longer adopt an extreme stack and tilt, but I still put most of my weight on my left, but just try to focus less on the mechanics than on the feel.

Here’s to better golf!