Day 1
Handicap:20
Gross: 87
Net: 67
Verdict: This is how this darn game should be played!
Day 2
Handicap:20
Gross: 92
Net: 72
Verdict: What a difference a day makes…twenty four little hours brought the crap again…
What Happened
I have never played on one course for two consecutive days before, but in Langkawi, you don’t really have much choices. Gunung raya starts off at RM140 (weekdays and weekends), throws you into a buggy and off you go on a course resembling Nilai Springs or Seremban 3. The fairway is awful: bare, more sand than grass; the greens in a mediocre condition; but the course is open, free of people and after that horrendous experience in Seri Selangor, to have a course that allows you to play golf under 3 hours is an amazing change.
Also, the other golf courses are Langkawi golf, which is closed indefinitely, so it’s currently being overruned by man eating baboons.
The other is Datai, which the last time we played was about 300++ per person. Now, it has ballooned up to RM510 per person. We need to change our gilagolf ranking for this course…is Datai worth that much? Hmm. Let me see….NO ABSOLUTELY FREAKING WAY. It’s a reasonably nice course, but dude, RM510? What the blue crap are they trying to pull? Thanks, Datai for discriminating against 99% of the population of Malaysia. Say NO TO DATAI!
So, back to Gunung Raya. The first day, was probably the best golf I have played in AGES. Eons. The first 7 holes were bogey all the way, but the manner of the bogeys were satisfying: saving those 5 footers on several occasions, except for hole 5 where I managed to 3 putt. I birdied the eight with a putt off the green but proceeded to brain fart with a 3 putt on the tough index 1 9th. Looking back, I could have scored 41 or something, but then again, I could also have missed those critical five footers to save bogey.
Back nine, more or less the same, except I messed up the par 3 17 by hitting the bunker, but overall, the drive was great, the putter was great, the irons were so-so. But Gunung Raya allows a lot of mistakes, especially to slicers on the first nine, on a few occasions I was borrowing fairways and still managed to put in on, or near the green.
Day 2: Ah…how we would go with so much optimism only to see it fade as we revert back to our epileptic crap golf. Day 2 was more reflective of my up and down golf, with big scores and more pars. The day started like a mirror copy, but unravelled with hole 2 drive into the drink, hole 3 drive into the drink, hole 4 par 3 into hazard (??!). From there, I managed to recover a little, and actually played well from hole 5 to hole 13, a string on nine holes brain-fart-free. Hole 14, I was 150 away with a six iron in hand and completely SHANKED it to oblivion. I managed to four on two putt for a six. Hole 17 again, hit into the sand and couldn’t escape, this is by far my worst hole on this course. I hate Hole 17.
Why I Sucked
Day 1 was great. Except for a couple of times my irons failed. Day 2, drive was pulling, and had some unlucky bounces here and there…but for sakes, my irons were absolutely shiitake. I kept digging the darn ground and in Gunung Raya, it was black dirt. So, cangkul it and your clubs will pop right back up and you will shank, top, thin, duff etc. Maybe my swing too steep? Some occasions I had my 60 degree for second shot and still managed to sabotage myself by putting it in the sand, fatting it, thinning it…man, it sucked.
Not So Sucked
Driver on day 1 was great, I was like a pro. Well, almost lah. But you know when we get arrogant and start twirling the stupid driver like Tiger, with one leg lifted. If it wasn’t on the fairway, it was just a little off the rough, and recoverable. Day 2: it all went south. My theory is that I wore RED on day 2, and put too much pressure to be like that black guy with the twirly driver. My putting was also quite OK, but gunung raya greens weren’t exactly very fast, or tricky and and greenside grass was so short I could put 5-10 meters away on some occasion.
What to Work On
Easy. Irons again. In no other game have I more chances than the last two, although day 2 scores didn’t reflect it. But constant duffing, thinning and one occasion, the dreaded shanking sabotaged back my game into mediocrity. I hate irons. I’m going to start putting from 150 metres in from here on.