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How on earth did my Bandwidth get exceeded??

I just had a report that my bandwidth of 10 GB for photobucket just got exceeded!

Ouch, all my pictures have disappeared.

And whats worse, I’m traveling. So slow internet access here….so, bear with me, I’ll try to get this thing up soonest…

I suppose this means that there are more people viewing this blog, and Gilagolf has to start accepting the fact that this is the greatest golf blog of all time. Such a humbling experience.

Update: Just found out that Photobucket will reset itself at the end of the month. I am far too cheap to pay for the unlimited pro version, I rather use the chaplang version I am using now. I suppose I’ll just look for a different image provider moving forward. Anyone with any ideas? Imageshack? Flickr? Multiply?

Sorry again, hope my words paint better pictures than…pictures.

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Gilanalysis 2: Rahman Putra Lakes

Handicap:18

Gross: 93

Net: 75

Verdict: Classic Case of Can Drive, Cannot Arrive Disease!

What Happened

KRPM Lakes is always a huge challenge even on a good day, so shooting what I shot was pretty satisfying, considering how south my game has gone so far. KRPM Lakes is also known as the championship course. Or more fondly as most contractors who tee up on the awful trio of hole 16,17,18 and facing acres of water to cross on their tee and second shot: “What the %^$% kind of course is this, hah??!?”

People say that if you are handicap 18 in Rahman means you are a 12 handicaper elsewhere, and usually these guys are either folks that never played KRPM before or their ability in driving is probably on par with my terrier’s ability to hump my labrador…if anyone is wondering, obviously without raving success (have you seen a terrier before and how much bigger the darn labrador is??!)

I mean, KRPM really isn’t extremely difficult, because it has so many landing spots. There’s not much OB in the lakes, and if you play often enough, you kinda know where the ball should land and how the greens will break. And no, I still play like a raccoon on marijuana on other courses, so the theory doesn’t work.

KRPM condition wasn’t good. Greens were so full of sand, and the grass was freshly mown, means dirty balls and dirty pants. We teed up on the back nine, immediately hooked into the hazard, and played the first nine at 49! Most of it was due to extremely bad chipping and yes, pitching again. Par 4 14th played ‘upper tier’, that means easier, yet I managed to duck hook again into the woods on the left.

I call 16,17,18 the Amen Corner of KRPM. Because you are always praying for the ball not find water there. It’s just an awful stretch and I am bound to find a triple bogey in one of these holes: and I did!

Front nine was much much better. The only mess up was at Hole 2, the ‘Second hardest hole in Malaysia’ or something. It’s a long par 3, with woods on the left, water on the right and a bloody hard time finding the green. The bunkers are opposite each other, sandwiching the green between, so a bad bunker shot will enter into the other bunker: like me. RATS! I hate this hole!

The only other screw up came on par 4 8, index 1. I was on the fringe with my second after a good drive and a great hybrid. Chipped to about 3 feet, downhill curling putt. Yaay, right? No, brain-farted, hit my par all the way down the hill and three putted. Hate BRAIN FARTS.

Why I Sucked

I always say to my pals that when my drive come in, I will be back to being a reasonably good hacker. Well, my drive came in but for some unfathomable reason, my stupid chipping and (of course) pitching was horrendous. My chipping was duff, top, duff, top all the way. To a point I was putting 10 meters away from the green. In KRPM, that’s like going into battle with the Persians in the movie 300, armed with a toothbrush and your renoma underwear.

Not So Sucked

My irons definitely improved from my Seri Selangor experience. I was hitting very good iron shots (except for the occasional hook creeping in). Likewise, my driver managed to find 9/14 fairways! That’s a heck of a statistic! Compare to 3 from my last game, I can say there is daylight from my current epidemic of hooks and OBs.

What to Work On

Pitching is still awful, chipping is getting to be worse as I play, so perhaps more time on the practice green as opposed to the driving range…


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Gilanalysis 1: Seri Selangor

Due to the fact that I hardly get to play on any new courses these days (save for our recent Johor bout), I’ve decided to have more frequent (and shorter) updates into this ever frustrating battle with this wretched game of golf.

I call this Gilanalysis. It’s quite a smart wordplay, isn’t it?

Anyways, it’s basically a run down on the recent games (recent could be as far back as my memory would allow), in these courses, and how I managed to screw it all up and how I manage to improve.

If this proves interesting enough, I’ll put in more as I try to find more time to play.

So first up, Seri Selangor, a game I managed to slip in due to the new year slow down everywhere else.

Handicap:18

Gross: 99

Net:81

Verdict: You know why now they call it gross score? Most of the time, it’s darn gross!

What happened

Under overcast skies and a marathon rain that began at 5 in the morning, it was the worst possible weather to play golf, but we were cautiously optimistic that the greens would perhaps be slowed down by the rain. Not that it made much difference to hackers like us. Seri Selangor would always be a tough cookie and we actually wanted to play at an easier course like Kinrara to start the year. But it was just a half day session and we all had to go to work and you know….

Seri Selangor was ok, but the greens were being sanded, so be warned. It sucked in roll and consistency, and being the great putters we are, we all struggled on the sandy greens.

I actually had a good start. From 1, I landed on the left bunkers and my eight iron found the fringe. Unfortunately, I had a bad bad chip and two putted to start. The index 1 was horrible. Drove in the woods, got to the green in 4 strokes, two putt. Next hole, water. Another mistake at hole 5 where after a good drive, I laid up badly and stuck my 7 iron into water on the left.

First par of the year came at the difficult 7 where I hooked left, and it hit a tree and bounced onto the rough, and I only had about a 9 iron. I hooked my 9 iron, one chip one putt. The rest from here was pretty routine. The dogleg 10 was a tough one, where I managed to weasel a par with my hybrid from 160 uphill green.

Par 3 12? Oh yeah, hooked the ball into the small drain on the left, dropped and double bogeyed. At this point, I was playing my par 3s 5 over, and would play it +7 at the end of the day. I really suck at my irons.

14 onwards and it all unravelled. Duffed chip. Hole 15, shank (with my hybrid) into OB. 16, three putted after 3 on. 17th, lost ball off the drive. 18th, drive into the hazard on the left.

I played the last 5 holes at +12, and lost a lot of money. Happy New Year.

Why I sucked

Easy. My 7 irons onwards were terrible. I kept hooking it and when I didn’t I duffed it. I also had a hard time driving on the last few holes. I wasnt confident enough to stick with 5-wood or 3 off the tee, and the driver kept killing me. And of course, my hybrid shanked. Actually, it wasn’t a shank, it was a toe. But the result was the same, ball skittering to the right, into OB land. Why am I toeing it? Too narrow takeaway?

Not so sucked

Driving was pretty good. Even if I just hit 3 fairways, but I felt confident and I was at least hitting it centre consistently. To the ones who had played with me, I was awful the past few months, because I kept toeing it. Now, it’s centred, but long doesn’t necessarily mean good in Seri Selangor and especially if your irons are crap.

My putter rocked in the front 9, but putted like a dog in the last holes. Maybe I’m just not a good gambler. But I feel pretty comfortable with the putter in hand. Go Odyssey!

What to work on

Obviously, irons. And also, a bit of the driver. And my lousy pitches. I pitch like a retarded mongoose. Anything 50 meters in, and I would prefer to putt. Seriously. Any advice to a hooker and a lousy pitcher?

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Legends GCR

Introduction

Our second leg of our Johor tour took us to Legends Golf and Country Resort. We chose it because it boasted of being developed by three of the biggest names in golf, Nicklaus, Palmer and Player. Although, I personally think it’s a marketing hack: Nicklaus designed the 18 hole course, Palmer designed the 9 hole course, and Player designed the 0 hole course.

As in there’s NO GARY PLAYER course there.

But we didn’t let it spoil our fun. After circling our way around Singapore, we finally got out of Tuas, back into BolehLand and began our merry journey into the blissful unknown.

Travel (0/5)

For those traveling to Legends GCR, it’s as bad as going to Damai Laut. I know, some courses are really worth it, but is it funny putting your customers through such excruciating torture of traveling and traveling and traveling to get to your darn course?? Why is the course buried so deep into the wilderness, is this some sort of Jurassic Park Wildlife preservation centre? Here comes the classic map:

We just love maps that are deceivingly simple, and that has no regard at all to proper reflection of distances. Again, this is mainly due to the fact that most golf course maps are generated by a company called Zoo Negara that employs eight Borneo chimps to draw out the maps.

OK, from Tuas, or from KL, depending where you are coming from, you want to hit the exit 252, to Kulaijaya. Once you hit the Kulai Toll, there’s quite a long straight road, lined with palm oil trees. At the end you will hit a T-junction, with a huge Carrefour (or was it Tesco) on your left. Turn left and you will perhaps undergo the longest, most torturous, most annoyingly signless road ever to be found on earth. In fact, I don’t know what is it with Johor and the extreme aversion to putting up signs. We finally ended up just following this Singaporean car, because we assumed that no Singaporeans in their right barnacles would be coming to such a god forsaken place unless it was to play golf. Or negotiate a kidnap ransom. Or sell palm oil. Easy guess.

Anyways, from the map on the Legends website, this trunk road from hell is only approximately one inch, which is about the same length as the road coming in until Tesco. The real map in google maps is almost 2.5 times the distance. There you go, another reason why Borneo Chimps are proven to be poor cartographers. You need to drive past this town called Kelapa Sawit. No kidding. They named a town after a tree. As in, translated, the town is called ‘Oil Palm’, and they deservedly won the nation’s most creative naming of a town. It’s like calling your town, ‘Cow’ if there are many cows, or ‘Coconut’ if there are many coconuts, or ‘Sand’ if it’s next to the sea. Well, at least they are descriptive.

Anyway, after Kelapa Sawit, you will eventually see a right turn into Legends GCR. You immediately go past the guard house, yaaay! And find out that from the guard house to the actual club house, is about 10 kilometers, making it the world’s longest drive way for a golf course.

It’s an absolutely stupid travel experience.

Price (1/5)

Finally reaching the spot, we were welcomed to quite a nice view of the club house. We registered ourselves using the Top Premier Voucher for RM87 each. I thought, hey, wait a minute, isn’t the green fee complimentary? Why did I have to pay RM87?

“For the buggy,” replied the sleepy eye registration lady.

“So 87 for the buggy? 40 something per person?”

“No, it’s 87 per person.”

“For the buggy??!? So it’s…(calculating) 174 per buggy???”

“Yes.”

Congratulations, Jack Nicklaus, Palmer and Player, you guys have officially won the world record for not just the longest drive way, but also the most cutthroat pricing ever for a golf buggy. That 170RM buggy better have GPS. And Turbo Nitro. And wings.

Later, I found out the truth. Legends charge RM85 per game per person with buggies etc included. Because we used the voucher, we weren’t eligible for the RM85 promotion, so we had to pay the cutthroat price instead.  If you wanted to play 9 hole, you also need to pay RM80. So to break it down for the confused:

Walk in – RM85 promotion, all in

With a complimentary Green Fee VOUCHER – RM87 for buggy, per person

9 Hole – RM80

Now, why didn’t they tell us not to use the damn voucher, when a normal walk in was only RM85? With a voucher, I paid RM2 more!! Why did I spend my money to buy vouchers, when it made me LOSE money?

Completely daft pricing arrangement, Legends. We are giving you a one, because at least it’s still not over RM100 to play. But still, please change your management to people who can actually understand what numbers are.

First thoughts

Not great first impressions, isn’t it? Once you get out of the changing room, turn left, and immediately the course opens up to the view of the Palmer 9.

And you go: “Aaaah.”

You are standing on an elevated platform, with an entire view of the course, and you suddenly forgive the darn Borneo Chimps, the idiots that price the course and you think, “Heck, this is why I pick up Golf.”

We got into our RM170 buggy (it looked like a normal buggy, by the way, in fact, slightly retarted driving wheel), and we chugged to the first hole on the other side.

Service (1/5)

I’d like to give high scores for the service, seeing that the caddy master (I think it was a girl, but I swear, she looked, sounded, walked like a man) was very efficient, got us out into the course at maximum efficiency.

But two things bothered us.

One, the fact that we were not informed of the promotional rate and using our vouchers, we got the worse end of the deal. Why, why do you want to purposely cheat your customers? What joy does it bring? Isn’t it enough that we had to travel through Mordor to reach your clubhouse?

Two, if you happen to eat your lunch there, good luck. Legends GCR is the land of the flies. As in once your food arrives, there are literally hundreds of flies swarming around you. I HATE FLIES. Because they’ve been in a lot of shit. And Legends GCR, for all your premium pretension, you are NEVER gonna make it if I have to eat with one hand constantly moving to swat flies away. Get those electrical blue lights that zap flies! Or hire a guy to walk around with the electrical badminton racquet to save your patrons. Don’t ever eat anything there, because it’s a filthy place to eat.

Fairways (4/5)

Finally, to the course itself. And whatever sins Legends GCR has caused in service and travel, it made it up a bit by giving us the finest patch of fairways we’ve seen in a long while. It reminded us of  Bukit Jawi, not as pristine as Tropicana, but very very nice. Coming from the hell hole called Royal Johor, we definitely agree to good fairways.

Greens (3/5)

The greens were not perfect by any means. It didn’t look very good either, with small patches of bald turf and sand appearing, but the roll itself was reasonably good, and definitely a lot more easy to predict and putt on. Mediocre Green, coming from better fairways. The greens also lost some points due to some Blue Grass disease that popped up, notably on the 9th and a few other holes. As in, these are literally BLUE patches, as if someone spilled a bucket of paint on it. I can’t understand why, but I guess it didn’t really affect the greens too much, except now, we need to call them ‘blues’. Get it? Stupid joke, I know.

Rough (4/5)

Rough was actually qute well preserved. The leaves were annoying, but the bunkers were pretty good where we played it. Well conditioned, it retained a lot more fluff despite the rain. This meant we could actually use our sand wedge with more bounce to get out as opposed to our 48 or 60 degrees for more dig. It really sounds like I know what I’m talking about, but honestly, I have a golf digest next to me, and I’m just randomly selecting some key words to give golfers a boner. Which by the way, have you noticed how many key words in golf resemble innuendoes? Soft and hard shaft. Lots of bounce. Get your wedge in there. Get in the hole. Good with your putter. Long and hard. Your club has a big head. I think those Scottish folks that invented golf could also be quite perverse.

Aesthetics (4/5)

We like the aesthetics. Even though I was having a complete melt down in my game, I still managed to take a walk and enjoy the scenery when I could. The first hole is a relatively simple shot, get up the slight knoll and you have a nice view at a lowered green that is generous on the misses to the left. Unfortunately I shanked my second shot into oblivion and started one of the worst games in my already patchy career.

The par 5 hole 3 is a very good looking tee off, both intimidating as well as precise, a 500m monster that plays long and straight.

The index 1 hole 5 is also quite a monster, fading shots will be guided into the oil palm hell by a ravine slipping away on the right of the fairway. Aim it too far left like what I did, and you are in OB land. It’s actually a very annoying view, because you think it’s wide, when actually it’s not. The elevation gives you that trickery, very much like the illusions we have playing KGPA. Hole 6 is another elevated tee box staring down at a fairway with bunkers dotting the right, a jungle waiting left and right. This is actually a fun hole to play because you can route your second shot over the water to another strip of fairway, or you can play it safe, and hit the 3rd shot over the water. In fact, hole 6 is considered the signature hole and we liked it, even if we were playing like wookies having too much sa-ke.

Hole 8 par 3 is a nice little number nestled in a dale (wow, my description is truly getting more and more Enid Blytonish!) I like it simply because I managed to get my first par there. No big deal right? BIG DEAL for me. I was shanking and topping my way furiously, losing a great deal of moolahs on the way.

Hole 9 plays pretty long but we found the fairway and from there, the trip coming in was a nice lofted 7 iron into the centre of the pin. Not. I topped the ball on the way to another bogey. AUGH!

The aesthetics continue to be impressive on the back nine, you have an elevated fairway to negotiate on the 10th,  and the 11th is where the crap hits the fan. It is an extremely elevated tee box with a view of the pond on the left and a very very narrow landing zone on the fairway. The back nine, though pretty is a HOOKER’s nightmare. I was having a terrific hooking day, and almost every hole had ponds running the left side, and on 13 and 14th,  my tee shots all found watery graves. 15th was a nice par 3 with water on the right (at least), but hole 16th and 17th were back with water on the left.

Aesthetically, I liked the 18th best. Because it didn’t have water. But it also required a long carry over a network of bunkers to have a sight of the green. I cleared the bunkers and my second almost carried to the green. However, I duffed my pitch and ended up with a bogey. Nice end to a horrid nine.

Fun Factor (3/5)

Technically, I didn’t have so much fun because I just couldn’t figure out my game. I have now, sort of, but at that point of time, playing this course, I was taking it too deep inside on my backswing, which caused me to reroute tremendously coming down and ‘getting stuck’, and continuously toeing the darn ball and hooking it badly.

Did we have fun? Our fourball weren’t playing too well, only one guy managed to break 100 (we don’t know how, since he lost as many balls as we did, but hey…) However, due to the nature of the course, it’s definitely worth another try when the golf swing is back. I’d like to take on the prodigiously difficult holes with left water again and the layout of the course was something that you would definitely equate with ‘good design’. Hole 6 was very fun, with each of us choosing different routes to the green and of course, hole 18th was bewitching with its series of bunkers.

As for my game, my pars all came in the par 3s, and the explosions came primarily due to either water balls, or OB balls. Tough game, but good course, nonetheless.

Conclusion

Even if we have only tried a grand total of 2 courses in Johor so far, we believe that Legends could be a top tiered course in Johor, and definitely recommended to be played. The course visuals are reminiscent of Bukit Jawi, but a little better, with a mixture of tight fairways that reward precision, and open savannahs for the basher. I prefer the hills course than the water, but strangely, I scored better (or not so bad) in the water course. (likely due to my balls being in hazard as opposed to OB). While the course experience is good, stay away from the F&B and its flies infested food; and try not to get cheated by the people at the counter.

The good: The course is aesthetically pleasing; well preserved fairways, rough and reasonable roll on greens; a good mixture of precision and basher; elevated landing areas allows you to open up the courses with some well placed shots.

The bad: The travel experience is horrible; the Borneo Chimps really messed up the map badly this time; be careful of the people behind the counter and their RM170 buggy hoax; flies are all over the clubhouse, making it more of a toilet than a food place; greens had a bit of blue, but otherwise is fine.

The skinny: 20 of 40 divots (50%). The course itself actually scored a lot of high marks, but a pity on the pricing, service and travel though. If you could look past these transgressions (which we could not), you can definitely have a good golf experience in the Legends course. Just pray that your hook doesn’t kick in during the back 9, and you should be fine! Recommended if you can take the travel and eat somewhere else.

Legends GCR  Scorecard

Legends GCR Information

Address: Lot 1302, Kebun Sedenak, PO Box 11

8100 Kulai, Johor, Malaysia

Contact: +607 – 6524388

Fax: +607-6526388

Website: http://www.legends-resort.com

Email: enquiry@legends-resort.com


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Royal Johor CC

Introduction

Every end of the year, my wife makes her pilgrimage to the sacred and holy grounds of Orchard Road, Vivo City and Suntec City, the holy trinity of shopping in Singapore. This pilgrimage is usually set on the week after Christmas to the 30th or 31st. This year, instead of slowly rotting a slow and sure death in the one of the many Coffee Beans and Starbucks lifelessly browsing the net, I decided to arrange a few rounds in Johor with some mates, and hopefully can cram in a 36 holes while the ladies do their shopping.

So, with the many golf courses in Johor to choose from, we decided on three: Palmville, Legends and Royal Johor. The first two was because we had vouchers, the last one was because it was close to Singapore and we only had about 3 hours of daylight and it was a toss between Daiman 18 and Royal Johor. We chose Royal Johor because of it’s apparent association with royalty, which we associated (later, we found out, mistakenly) with quality, and because KRPM was an affiliate club, so I didn’t need to pay any green fees. Oh yeah, also, there has been tournaments there like the Iskandar Open from 2007 to 2009. So it has to be good, right?

Travel (1/5)

Immediately, we were slammed with reality. Going to their website http://www.royaljohorcountryclub.com, we looked for the location map and ended up downloading this HUMONGOUS jpeg that was simply lifted out of Google maps, with a tiny RJCC somewhere in the middle with no directions whatsoever. OK, guys, number 1 lesson in internet stupidity: NEVER put a gigantic 1.2M picture map with no directions as your main location map…we’re downloading via our berries and iphones on pathetic Celcom and maxis broadband lines, so cut us some slack. Seeing how useless the silly map was, we took to our own google maps and it led us to the general vicinity of the club. The problem with google maps is that it doesn’t rightly know where the entrance was, so it led us to the backside of the club, along Jalan Datin Halimah.  From there there were absolutely NO SIGNS to the club, so we had to do some guess work, including turning into the palace gates and being hailed by bullets from the Johor Royal Guards. We beat a hasty retreat and after seeing the golf course but not being able to access it from Jalan Datin Halimah, we finally wised up after 2 U-turns, took a small road at the circled red into Jalan Tun Abdul Razak and finally saw a sign saying Johor Country Club. What happened to the Royal?

Will it hurt for them to put a few signs to point us to the right direction? And please, RJCC, change the darn location map on your website. It’s stupid. And lazy.

Price (-1/5)

This is where the crap hits the fan. Remember I told you that I had a free green fee because KRPM was affiliate? Well, my other group member had to pay the full price because he wasn’t any affiliate, and they charged us RM87. Well, that’s ok, since this was a tournament course.

Wait for the hidden costs. One, this course does not have buggies. It’s ironic, because we were told this by two guys who were sitting in a new golf buggy, who sneered at us and said, “Walking Course lah”.

Well, it comes with a caddy. Because RJCC was famous for violating every single human rights or working conditions, it forced us to take one caddy to carry two of our cart bags. Poor guy, or so we thought. At the end, we thought of tipping him RM50 for his work. Instead, he told us that the RM87 does not cover caddy fees, and that it will cost EACH of us RM50 to cover his tips and payment.

So, RM100 for one caddy? Sure, he carried two bags, but what the heck, he wasn’t that helpful anyway! So, my friend had to pay RM137 for a walking course, on a weekday, and a course that generally resembles the rearend of a hyena? WHAT THE HECK kind of stupid pricing is this? And we had to WALK, after 3 hours sitting in a car, actually, 4, including of going into Singapore and coming out again. Lordy.

First thoughts

We didn’t know about the pricing arrangement until the end, so we did go into the course without much of the prejudice we had at the end. First thoughts: Lots of trees, cowgrass, resembling UPM and finally, are you serious that some world class players like KJ and Retief actually played on this crap course?

Also, they call it now Johor Golf Course, without the ‘Royal’. When asked, the caddy, Jamal, cryptically said, the Royal was removed when the king died. After a few holes, we concluded that most likely, the king couldn’t stand such a course to bear a royal standard, except for being a royal pain in the ass to play it.

Service (0/5)

Ok, let’s be fair here. Jamal, our caddy, was a lanky, talkative dude who had some golf experience for helping out to organize tournaments. And he was lugging two big bags. And walking. So, he was probably treated slightly better than the southern slaves in Missippi during the American civil war. Yet, his yardage was completely out. Until it came to a point where we had to either overclub on his recommendation or underclub, depending on what we think is right. His green reading was also off.

The worst of course, came when we had to fork our RM100 to pay him. I mean, ok, he worked hard, yes, but I could generally get a Bangladeshi worker to do his job. He didn’t do too much except carry a lot of bags. And that too, we lighten the load for him by carrying our water bottles.

According to the website, a class A caddy costs RM40 including tips. We each had to pay him RM50 and he was no where close to a class A caddy, so we consider this a rip-off. If you happen to play, please negotiate the caddy pricing before teeing off, and make sure you get a class A caddy that can do more than carry two bags and wipe your balls. Golf Balls, not your other kind.

Fairways (2/5)

Aside from being cow grass, it actually wasn’t so bad, and the conditions (rain coming down in a miserable drizzle) made it difficult to enjoy the game thoroughly. But the fairways, while not being exceptional, did hold up to the rain a bit. Don’t expect pristine, mat like fairways though.

Greens (1/5)

For a tournament club, the greens are seriously in need of restoration. Or perhaps they were in the middle of doing that. Sandy to the point of having your ball bumping up and down into the hole; the reads were useless because you couldn’t get a good roll on it. It was hugely disappointing to come to club that had Retief and KJ putting on it only a year back, and now it resembles, again to use our amazing metaphor, a hyena’s backside.

Bad greens.

Rough ( 1/5)

The rough didn’t fare too well, either. Because it was nearly dark and gloomy, a lot of our balls were lost in the rough due to the leaves and unkempt trees. Foliages, branches, lalang, everything was growing out of it. Once your ball rolled off the fairway, good luck. Of course, you can say it puts  a premium to driving accuracy, but come on, seriously, how many hackers are there that can reasonably hit the ball straight? OB generally lined the entire course, and with a resemblance to UPM, it was yet another gargantuan struggle for a hooker like me to stay on course without exploding, both in scores-wise as well as in temperament.  Indeed, it was a sight to behold, a china-man tomahawking his clubs all over the hallowed royal fairways.

Aesthetics (2/5)

Jungle course. Trees are all over the place, and this makes it as enticing as being repeatedly stabbed in the nostrils with a rusted nail. I mean, I know some people who actually LOVE jungle courses like UPM, but they are generally in the minority hackers categories, probably just as many as the guys who like to eat bat shit. It’s actually edible, no kidding, but seriously, do you have bat shit cravings like you do for chocolates?

The problem with RJCC is that all the holes in the front nine, literally plays the same. Hole one, elevated tee box, dogleg left. Hole 2, elevated Green, dogleg right. Oh, a nice par 3 surrounded by trees with a huge elevation drop from tee to green. Here we go again, hole 4, dogleg left, hole 5 dogleg right, hole 6, straight.

Aesthetically, the par 3s are the ones that stand out as being better than normal, especially the ones in the front nine. Hole 7 is a pretty funky shot across a huge pond fronting a table green. Hole 16 also reminds me of the par 3 in Saujana, with a raving fronting an accessible green.

The two ending holes are nothing much to shout about, simply straight drives, with bunkers here and there making you so eager to get off the course and not come back. We might be missing the whole point here, because I can’t imagine a crap course being selected for an international event for 3 years running, but we seriously cannot see the exceptional character that is at play here. This is just a crap jungle course, as far as we can see! Are we blind? KJ, Retief, did you actually had fun playing and winning here, or were you forced by gunpoint by your sponsors and agents?

Fun Factor (2/5)

Rain. Walking 18. Dim lights. Long travel from KL. Long travel back to Singapore. Was it fun as an experience? No. Was it fun as a golf game? I guess it was OK. Walking on the course actually does something to your game. It actually improves it. Seriously. Try walking instead of buggying the next time. Your muscles becomes less tense, it more loose and you can actually hit the next shot without writhing like a snake strangling a zebra. But for 18, on a hilly jungle course? I think I’ll pass, until I get my fitness level up a little.

Again, the par 3s are pretty fun to play, as of the occasionally hole like the 17th, with an elevated fairway, very much like one of the holes in Danau. But the tree line course makes it excruciatingly tricky for us to play, and in the fading light, and with the course filled with leaves, it got to a point where fun wasn’t how we described it. Another f letter word would probably be a better description.

Conclusion

Disappointing. We honestly thought Royal Johor would be one of the better course in Johor. But except for it’s history, and the tournaments held here from 2007 to 2009, there’s really nothing much to recommend for this course. I suppose, removing the Royal from the club does it justice, since it should really be a mediocre, below average experience. We chose this over Daiman 18, and unless Daiman 18 is like playing in knee deep cow dung, it will probably be a better bet than Royal Johor.

The good: History and the fact that Retief and KJ had planted their sacred shoes in this course a few years back.

The bad: Travel is crap, compounded by the insistence of not having signs to point to the club; pricing is RM130++ for a walking course and a mediocre caddy; buyer beware, make sure you nail down the pricing before the start, or caddy will rip you off and threaten you with a 7-iron down your throat; the course is nothing special, KRTU, UPM will probably suffice at half the price and half the travel agony.

The skinny: 8 of 40 divots (20%). RJCC just made it past the AAC category by the skin of its teeth and on its merit as a host for international tournaments. But this is a club that rides on its past success, because nothing we see indicates any sort of international standards by any stretch of imagination. Absolutely not recommended, unless you enjoy being ripped off and playing the rest of your round completely butt-naked. In which case, you need some serious therapy.

Royal Johor CC Scorecard

Royal Johor CC Information

Address:

Royal Johor Country Club

3211 Jalan Larkin, 80200 Johor Bahru,

Contact: +607-223 3322 /224 2098

Fax: +607-224 0729

Website: http://www.royaljohorcountryclub.com

Email: rjcc@tm.net.my

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Kajang Hill Golf Club

Introduction

After the longest layoff from my trusted (and inaccurate) irons, I decided to come out of retirement and play a round of 36 with a couple of Gilagolf pen pals from Korea. These guys cold called me on the gilagolf.net website (which brings our foreign readership to an amazing total of three), and we’ve been arranging a time where I can free up my entire day to play two rounds of golf.

I learnt a few things from this: One, Koreans are good. I mean what do you expect from a country that churned out a guy like KJ and a girl like Grace Park? One of them, I nickname, Optimus Prime. Because he was like a robot. He was like the mechanized swing arms we see companies use to test their clubs…every single shot was a precise centre hit. Bam bam bam.

So we played the morning at Impiana…and I must say, the green completely sucked. Since Saujana left, the golf course has lost a bit of its luster. For the price paid, I don’t think it’s worth it.

Anyways, we’re talking about Kajang Hill, so on with it!

Travel (3 /5)

Travel is actually very straightforward. Here’s the official map from their website.

I don’t know why people insist on complicating matters so much. From now on, please, just go to maps.google.com and type in Kajang Hill and you’ll find the directions. There is NO WAY ON EARTH that golfers will ever get lost ever again, unless you are completely blind, or cannot read maps, or illiterate, or you are riding on a blind, deaf and lame donkey to the course…to which our suggestion to you would be to please find a proper job and at least get a bicycle for transportation.

Travel is pretty easy, because of its close proximity to Bangi, and the other clubs around the area.

Price ( 1/5)

Ok, here’s our first beef. Kajang Hill used to be really accessible to cheapo hackers like us. I believe we just paid like RM70 or something and we’ll be happily hacking away at Mother Nature to our own satisfaction. Right now, Kajang Hill charges: RM520 for a flight. That is RM130 per person, on a week day. It includes dinner, which is I think six course, but wait, before you get excited about it, the six course apparently includes the small plate of cut chili in soya sauce. You know, the stuff they give you when you order fried rice to be poured into your rice. That’s right. Kajang Hill considers that a dish. Now thanks to Kajang Hill, a whole generation of Koreans and Japanese will think Malaysia is a land of losers who considers cut chilies in soya sauce a main dish.

So, RM130, and what changed? Golf Course managers out there, the quickest way to make a buck and to charge higher, is to put all signs into Japanese, and change your meters to yardage. All of sudden, you are a premier course.

Sorry, Kajang Hill, you are NOT a premier course, and pricing strategy like this sucks. As a point, I didn’t pay for my game, but all the same, if  I were to have paid for it, I’d think it’s a very pricey for a course of this nature.

First thoughts

Having played this course a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I had very little recollection. However, I did have a picture of myself a long time back hitting this shot:

And I always wondered where on earth was this place at. Now I know….Kajang Hill, during a time before the Japanese and Korean signs came up, and it was just another hacker course for us.

Service ( 3/5)

For what they lacked in common sense in pricing, Kajang Hill made up for it with reasonable service. The registration and checkin were painless and quick, and the shower facilities were top notch. The food (aside from the idiocy of putting cut chilies as a dish), was served quickly without any fuss. I think in many parts, while the golf course essentially remained mediocre, Kajang Hill has somewhat successfully glazed over their cutthroat pricing with efficient service, and as the old Japanese saying goes, “Every sin is coverable by cleanliness.”. Actually I made that up, but admit it, you think it sounds pretty cool, right?

Fairways ( 2/5)

OK, course review time! The reason why I am less satisfied with the whole experience was that the fairways didn’t really stand out as exceptionally. The idea of pricing it so high, means that, after all the good service, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the course. The mediocre fairways suffered greatly by allowing buggies on the course, and of course, in the hands of race experts like us, wheel ruts will abound a-plenty. In some areas, bald patches also appeared. It’s not to say it’s bad, but every imperfection is compounded by the fact that it costs us so much to play there….I mean, if I think I paid for a holiday in the Bahamas, will I be contented if they threw me into Pulau Redang for the same price, even if Pulau Redang is a pleasant enough stay?

Greens (3/5)

We played Impian in the morning and had a bad experience with sandy greens. Back to Kajang Hill, the greens were good. While not as pristine as Saujana or other top courses, the roll was predicatable enough for us to sink some impressive bombs, and the speed consistent enough through the holes.

Rough ( 2/5)

Bunkers, rough were reasonably maintained, if not bunkers are slightly packed, so go ahead and get a little more dig into the sand to get the ball out. The rough wasn’t too challenging, while the ball would wander occasionally off the fairways, the rough allowed it to sit up for you to semi-tee the shot. The problem in Kajang Hill wasn’t so much of the rough, but more of the ominous trees surrounding the entire course.

Aesthetics (3/5)

I’m not a huge fan of forest courses. This might obviously be a little subjective, while I am sure some gilagolfers prefer forests and jungles as opposed to broad, generous fairways the same way as some people prefer to undergo unnecessary pain through middle ages torture, I’m just going to go with the majority: We do not like the feeling when our balls disappear into the forest. And if you bring a crock game into the course, like I did, you better get used to that feeling.

We played the back nine first, where I promptly opened with a double bogey in a relatively straightforward hole. The par 5 13th can bring even the most intrepid golfer sporting a crock swing to his knees, as it requires an extremely accurate tee shot, with any wandering balls rolling into the forest on the left, or disappearing into the trees on the right. Plus, you accurate shot must clear the ravine fronting the tee box. Intimidating is probably the second word that comes. The first word is censored, since this is a family-friendly golf blog. After that god forsaken opening shot, you still need to navigate  through a narrow strip of land that twists as if you are running a scope through your colon, and finally opens to a grand view of water and elevated tee, two combinations that do not bode well for hackers.

The painful 15th was where I really blew up, spinning my first shot into OB and from there, it was just a matter of recovery. With trees lining either side of the fairway, it was a Return to Beruntung, except this was a more expensive lesson to learn. The 18th shares a parallel fairway with the 9th, and this is where Kajang Hill picks up points on beauty. It’s a nice ending, actually, and the peanut shaped shared green, with contours is definitely worth the hacking and chopping of several species of fauna into extinction.

Rolling into the front nine, the course opens with a languid par 5 that snakes on a turn to an elevated green, where by some miraculous sheninigans, having topped the ball just past the ladies tee, I proceeded to bogey the hole. The par 4 second is a lot more unforgiving, with bunkers covering the left side that requires a slightly precise hit to the fairway on the right. The first par 3 is an intimidating one, as forests surround an isolated green, where any retarded iron shot that pulls or pushes will be in monitor lizard territory.

The par 5 5th is interesting as it requires a clearance of a ravine, into an elevated fairway, with no visibility of the green. With so many trees surrounding me, it was as if I have magically been transported into Jumanji.

And of course, coming back to the 9th hole, I was finally able to place where the picture of me hitting out of the water was taken. Having solved the mystery, now it’s back to solving how to hit the bloody ball with any precision at all.

Fun Factor (3/5)

How fun was this? I think it was a reasonable game, seeing how deep my rut was. I kept hooking the darn ball, and toeing it, and unable to resolve the issue, it was just a complete grind for me. My partners fared a lot better, although towards the end, we were basically resembling the zombies in Resident Evil, having gone through 36 holes for the day. Or perhaps I speak for myself, since my fitness level is probably slightly higher than a 120 year old panda who is half lame and completely blind.

I did have a bit of fun watching my other partners play well, especially the Korean Optimus Prime, because he was just cracking shot after shot after shot. He parred four of the last five holes enroute to an impressive 83. Well done, SJ!

Conclusion

Kajang Hill, as a course is probably in the same standards as Impian or Bangi, with a few wow factor, but generally a functional enough course. The down side is of course the pricing, and simply the lack of amazing aesthetics, except for the ending holes of each nine. It plays very foresty, like Air Keroh, and perhaps that puts it in a disadvantage to hackers who enjoy a little bit of levity from the fairways.

The good: Aesthetically, a typical forest course; very nice ending holes for each nine; travel is reasonable, as well as service; and greens are generally acceptable.

The bad: Pricing is a little bit skewed to the experience of the shower rooms, as opposed to the actual course itself; fairways not up to par due to liberal use of buggies on fairway; rough is not so challenging; sadistic nature of some holes will cause recurring nightmares for hackers with a crock hook like yours truly.

The skinny: 20 of 40 divots (50%). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Kajang Hill is a bad course by any means. If you are willing to pay more than what it’s worth, and work with yards instead of meters, and think yourself as a precision surgeon who can navigate through a colon, and likewise navigate through the forests, then Kajang Hills is for you. Otherwise, it might be a course to give a miss on.

Kajang Hill Scorecard

Kajang Hill Information

Address:

Kajang Hill Golf Club
Lot 1917, Off Km 29, Jalan Semenyih,
43500 Semenyih, Selangor D.E Malaysia.

Contact: +603-8723 7777 / 3801

Fax: +603-8723 7337

Website: http://www.kajanghill.com/02_khgtt_e/02a_khgtt_e.html

Email: info@kajanghill.com