Review has been updated due to Bukit Beruntung’s astounding crapness on 2 May 2011. New review in RED. So those in black (dated August 27 2010) are NO LONGER APPLICABLE!
Introduction
Ah, Bukit Beruntung. Every single golfer in Malaysia has traversed through this club at one time or another. Why? Because it’s cheap. And it has 36 holes. And whoever plays here is likely a beginner, hence the embarrassment of hitting a crap shot is not as bad as say, playing in KGNS, or Seri Selangor, where there are about 2 million people gawking at you and if you play too slow, they will likely start pumping in a hundred balls in your direction.
Beruntung, actually was where it all began for me, and I suppose for many of us. Before Kinrara, before Bangi, even before the stupid BU and the even stupider Bukit Jelutong, there was the one crap course to rule them all: Bukit Beruntung.
I recall as a beginner, my second time playing golf, and playing on the East Course, to the point that I was in a delirium after hitting my 436th ball into the water or into the jungle. That was possibly the last time I ever set foot on the course, a magnificent 8 years ago.
We are not sure why we haven’t made our way to Beruntung for so long, but finally, because we have no where else to play on a Saturday morning, we chose the cheapest golf course to play in…and so, to Beruntung we went.
Travel ( 3/5)
One of golf’s greatest mystery is this: Why does it seem like it takes eons to travel to courses up north, as opposed to going to courses down south. I think there’s some huge physics theory at play here. Everytime we head north, it seems like we’re travelling to the World’s End. Possibly, everything beyond Rawang is Crap Country, and that’s why it feels so excruciating long. However, when we head over to Nilai or Seremban, it’s like, hey, we’re there, that was so fast! So traveling to Beruntung is still a pain, but what we like about it is that it’s near the highway. Once turn off, you can access it pretty easy. Compare it with possibly the two most stupid golf course access in the entire planet: Bukit Unggul and Tasik Puteri. Both of these courses are so deep inside the jungle or housing estate, you need a map to find your way there. Obviously, there’s no reason to it, except to make your life miserable as a golfer. For Tasik Puteri, at least the course is reasonable. For Bukit Unggul, I have decided to become the main antagonist to it and have so far discouraged all my groups to go there only if you want to die. Serious. Bukit Unggul sucks.
Whoa, carried away. Anyways, here’ s the general direction to Bukit Beruntung. We got it off their website (http://www.bbgcr.com) , which by the way was recently selected as the world’s worst golf website, beating even golfforthecolorblindandcompletelyblindpeople.com. Congratz Beruntung for a site that looks like shit-ake!
Price ( 2/5)
You seriously cannot beat RM60 for a Saturday morning. What can you do? Elsewhere, everyone is charging an arm and a leg just for you to play this game, so when a price like that in a reasonable accessible course comes up, there’s no complaining.
They charge RM100 for public holiday. You are better off using that RM100 to purchase cyanide and eating it for dinner than to play on this sorry excuse for a golf course. Downgraded from 3 to 2!
First thoughts
Like I said, coming back to beruntung is like meeting your ex-girlfriend. You know, the one you dumped because she looked like a greasy hamburger and snorted when she laughs and in general made your life a living hell by constantly challenging your mother to an arm wrestle contest. I don’t know. I’m just saying. And then finding out that this hamburger girlfriend of yours has become a little prettier, snorts a little lesser and generally don’t torment your mother anymore with such ridiculous challenges.
In short, Beruntung didn’t look half as bad as I thought.
Sorry, Beruntung East is the second course (the first being Tasik Puteri) that has been re-reviewed and downgraded due to its exceptionally sorry and lousy condition as we played it on 2 May 2011. Bukit Beruntung is by far, the CRAPPIEST COURSE EVER and deserve a thousand course deaths by the blade of my 7-iron. It is irresistibly horrendous and for those of you who are stubborn or foolish enough to ignore this warning NOT TO PLAY at Bukit Beruntung, you are better off driving six inch rusted nails into your trakea.
Bukit Beruntung Golf Course SUCKS.
Service ( 0/5)
Kudos to Beruntung, who did not force any caddies on us, and managed to kick us into the golf course in the fastest time possible. Of course, the buggies are still former army jeeps from 1942, but what’s there to complain. In fact, service was so good/bad, that there were no marshals to be found, so we really can’t gauge this properly.
Easy checkin and bam before you know it, you’re on the course. It’s a nice change for us, after undergoing the Nazi service we faced in Glenmarie and of course, the most ultimately incompetent group of shit-ake people in Bukit Jawi.
And guess what? The Mines company (as in the Mines group, the guys that brought us the amazing white elephant Mines Golf Resort), just bought over the management of Beruntung, so expect to see some changes!
Downgraded 3 to JIRO! Please, please, please. Will someone tell us if there is ANYBODY in Bukit Beruntung that is actually maintaining this God Forsaken piece of crap? The Mines took over sometime back, but unconfirmed reports that the person handling the maintenance has gotten so traumatised over the whole experience that he is contemplating heading over to the MACC building and going over to the fourth floor for a ‘leap’ of faith. Mines has given up on Beruntung, and has preferred to move the entire maintenance budget to tending to growing tulips and magnolias randomly on the Karak highway….which will have more effect.
In other words, the service doesn’t suck. It’s just NON-EXISTENT. In fact, at one point the ‘buggy’ tracks were so filled with wild boar urine that we simply started driving on the course itself, and of course, with only monkeys as marshals, we didn’t have too much problems. Stupid Bukit Beruntung.
Fairways ( -1/5)
I don’t know if it’s the Mines ownership or what, but this was where we immediately saw value. You might think 2 is actually a sucky score, but you haven’t seen Beruntung at its worst. It would be -20 or so. So the improvement was this: no plugged balls despite soggy weather; and a reasonably playing experience from the fairway (when we can find the darn fairway, that is).
The fairways is downgraded from 2 to -1 due to the amazing tendency for balls to get lost on the fairway. Nothing is more worse than courses that punishes good shots and Bukit Beruntung excels at it, because the maintenance people are too lazy to work and has left the course to ruins.
ARGH!! THE WORSE FAIRWAYS EVER! Bukit Beruntung is a terrible, horrible experience for any golfer. It swallows up good tee shots, it is as anorexically narrow, and it is HORRIBLY maintained, with long blades of grass (the ones that sticks to your socks and pants) all over…sorry, Bukit Beruntung, you cannot charge RM100 when your course resembles the Dead Marshes of Mordor. Hole 1, plugged ball on fairway. Hole 3, great drive on fairway swallowed up by the course. Hole 6, super good second shot is lost on the fairway. Hole 8, is the worse. My six iron was pure and turned the corner headed to the green. NO WHERE to be found, the grasses in front of the green was pure water. What a stupid course, and I proceeded to dig up the entire course to landscape it and at least make it better. Hole 14, a pushed five iron hits the track and jumps just a bit off into the ledge. Guess what? 4 pair of eyes and no where to be found. At this moment, it was certainly in a “What in Heavens name are we doing on this profoundly piece of Triceratops CRAP COURSE??!?!?” mode. Obviously, we were on probably drugged earlier to give this a 2. It’s -1 and we are already being charitable.
Again, here we go for the google search index: Bukit Beruntung Golf Course SUCKS.
Beruntung East is not easy. It looks easy from the first tee, but it’s not. It’s like that hamburger woman again, pretending to be pretty. The first tee has a reasonable sized fairway but don’t be deceived, because the trees that hug the fairways: these are bad trees. These are trees you can’t get out of, because once they get to your balls, they crunch them into pieces like the Sarlac eating your balls. Golf Balls, that is.
The second doesn’t get any better. You know you’re in for a long one.
Greens ( 2/5)
As the famed Bart Simpson would say, “Meh..”
Greens are strange as in speed. Each green has a different speed so if you think you’re being clever by taking a long time over a putt and wondering why your last putt zoomed past 6 feet and your current putt is short 10 feet, don’t bother. It’s obvious Beruntung didn’t bother, so just hit the darn putt and hope for the best.
To its credit, like the fairways, we did expect worse, so we’re giving it a 2. The greens are reasonably sized: we just had a nightmarish game in Templers, where the greens were the size of Brazil and I had my first official 5 putt. WHAT!
No comment on greens. Slower than a turtle. On its back. Waving its leg and moving 1 nanometer every year. Bukit Beruntung Golf Course is stupid.
Rough ( -1/5)
One of my playing partners was this close to suicide after a few holes and dealing with his worst experience in a golf rough ever. I mean, it’s not to say that we’re even good in this game, so when the rough catches your balls and not let go….yep, it’s the famous Pitbull Rough. I think Beruntung got lucky with this one. You know they only employ 3 people to maintain all 36 holes of the course, and 2 of these guys are actually constantly swimming in one of the man made mining lakes there, so nobody actually maintains the rough. Mother Nature does that, and it has become so impossible to hit and so deep, we were using hybrids to get out of rough to a green 100 meters away…and still short.
Now, I’m not into S&M, but I’m a little partial for rough that really punishes us without being stupid about it. Punish means, it penalizes us for squirting our ball all over the place like morning piss. Being stupid means not cleaning up the trillion leaves that hide your ball like Seri Selangor.
Granted, Beruntung is on a palm oil estate, so there were not much issues of leaves, except for red ants and the occasional king cobra. Other than that, the rough is tough, so watch for it.
Again, please don’t ask how we could give this stupid course rough a 3. It is spectacularly the most idiotic rough ever. Bukit Beruntung has simply REFUSED to cut any grass or lalang and in most holes, the jungle has reclaimed the course. Yes, we even saw ape men eating pygmies. Hello, Mines, there is a difference between a good rough and an absolutely LAZY maintenance program, don’t think we are so stupid not to know the difference. Tough rough: Saujana. Absolutely ridiculously, astoundingly and emphatically CRAP rough: Bukit Beruntung. If a ball skitters one feet into the rough as is buried under eight tons of lalang, it is not funny anymore. Neither is it golf. Yes, say it again with me: It is STUPID, Bukit Beruntung. Get your sorry act together.
Aesthetics (2/5)
You don’t expect much so you don’t get much. Bukit Beruntung has the similar feel of KRTU, with lots of ugly looking trees sprouting all over the place. It’s not a pretty course, but perhaps we were all playing like drunk mogwais to notice too much of the scenery. We were always destined to suffer on a course that had trees as tight as cycling pants on Queen Latifah. The tough par 5 6th hole requires a pinpoint drive, and right after that, another tough par 4 awaits us. Basically if you can’t drive straight, you will be in for a long game. And apparently, after 8 years from the time I last played this darn course, something has not changed: I still can’t bloody drive straight. Hole 9 is an intimidating hole that requires a good drive to cross. In fact 9 and 18th are similar in that sense, and aesthetically, these are the rare nice looking holes of the course.
The toughest holes might be the 11th and 12th. The 11th is a hooker’s nightmare, with jungle lining the left, and the 12th has water front and right, with a small landing area to hit your drive. The amount of balls deposited into either side of the water can probably be exported to Singapore to help them reclaim land that belongs to the ocean.
The 13th is the most interesting one, where a good drive sees you about 180m to 190m from the green, which requires to cross a strange looking lake with a natural ‘S’ shaped bridge across it. I recall this hole because when I was much younger, I deposited possibly 12-14 balls into the water. Good times.
Fun Factor ( 0/5)
To say we didn’t have fun at all is not really the truth. Face it, the drive there wasn’t great but they did put us onto the course quickly. And although the course wasn’t so superb, we didn’t pay a whole lot for it. I suppose, we could have had boundless fun if our balls could just find the bloody fairway, because playing from the rough was like having your wisdom tooth extracted with a rusted plier. So there was certainly a case that we were playing so bad, it was not fun. Most of the cours played pretty similar, like I said, except for the last holes of each nine. Each required a good drive, and a good second shot into generous greens. The greens itself weren’t very good on the day we played, and it’s a course, where after the 15th hole or so, you’ll be wondering, hmmm, what can I eat for lunch?
Downgraded from 2 to 0. Honestly, with such a stupid and idiotic course like Bukit Beruntung, fun factor ranks slightly lower than watching cat shit dry under the sun. And eating it afterwards. Nobody can have fun on such lousy conditions.
And this is not a joke. On the par 4 10th, one of our flight mate hit his second shot onto the slope and immediately this blardy monkey (not the marshal–the actual, animal monkey) came down and picked up the ball, while our poor flightmate was screaming for it to drop it in the name of the law. The monkey actually took the ball and went up to the trees, all the while chattering to its fellow monkey thiefs and bragging how he had found an egg with the name ‘Taylormade’ stamped on it. Boy, monkeys are so idiotic and such a nuisance on the golf course. We were about to start Battle: Bukit Beruntung, against this alien invaders, but after seeing a whole group of them squealing in the trees, we remembered ‘Congo’ the movie and decided to let these beruntung apes hijack the ball.
Conclusion
We came to Bukit Beruntung on the back of its terrible reputation as a Sh*tty course, much like Beringin was. To our surprise, since the Mines management has taken over, it wasn’t so bad. Let’s just say that there’s definitely a trend to improvement, and perhaps the next time we tee up on it, we’ll be seeing better greens, better fairways.
Please, for the love of humanity and all things beloved on Planet Earth. PLEASE DO NOT GO TO BUKIT BERUNTUNG! Even the despicable Bukit Unggul isn’t as bad. The most profound conclusions we can draw on Bukit Beruntung GCR is, it sucks, it’s daft and it’s excruciating to every senses known to man.
We took the risk to play here on a public holiday, and there was absolutely NOBODY on the east course. We finished in 3 and half hours. It’s like playing in the Land of the Living dead. Now we know why nobody bothers to play in this course….this is by far, the most horrible golf course you will find in Malaysia. You can play it for the distinction.
The good: Subjectively, the rough, depending on whether you like golf S&M; the no-fuss attitude of the club service; the dead weight price is really a turn on, especially for nomadic golfers on Saturday morning that are to cheap to look for better courses (that’s us!!); Mines management can only mean good things.
No. Nothing good about Bukit Beruntung. Horrible course, give the entire Malaysia a bad name for even having a malay word in there. From here on, we are going to christian this course, Crap Course Tak-Untung.
The bad: Trees, trees, trees; fairways as tight as cycling pants on Rosie O’Donnell; greens and fairways are not up to par; and don’t expect too much beauty on the course.
Bukit Takuntung is really really really really lousy. I wish I had stayed home and learn yodeling while in a kilt, or read the entire manual for our home toilet bowl. Both would have been more worthwhile.
The skinny: 7 of 40 divots (17.5%). This is very surprising as we were ready to send Bukit Beruntung into the hell hole of reviews, but came out quite satisfied with the experience. The fact that there is a change of management, and that the Anika Sorenstam Golf City is just next door, means that Beruntung is coming out of the wilderness of golf course and may assert itself as one of the better ones in the near future. Go Beruntung, jangan tak untung!
Too late. Bukit Tak-Untung will go down in the dark distinction of Gilagolf’s hall of shame, joining Selesa and Frasers as the WORST COURSE IN MALAYSIA. This course is so stupid, it’s almost hilarious. Trust me, between this and being gored by a Borneo white rhino, you should choose the latter. This is a MUST-AVOID for everyone playing golf.
And one more time, everybody: Bukit Beruntung: YOU SUCK!
Bukit Beruntung Score Card
Bukit Beruntung GRC Information
Address:Bukit Beruntung Golf & Country Resort
WDT. No. 14 48009 Rawang
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Contact: +603-60281841/1888
Fax: +603-60281843
Email: bbgc@streamyx.com
Website: www.bbgcr.com or www.stupidestgolfcourseintheworld.com
AUGUST 2ND, 2010
Introduction
Kedah is one of the northernmost part of Malaysia, almost to the Thai border, and home to a few golf courses that we always wanted to play but couldn’t find the time to do it. So some gilagolfers found themselves up north and had a choice to play Cinta Sayang or Kulim. I don’t know who the heck made the decision, but at the end, we all found ourselves headed to Kulim because it was closer to Penang, where we were staying.
Travel ( 3/5)
To reiterate, this category of travel is fast becoming irrelevant. With the advent of google maps, you can get almost anywhere these days without depending on sh*tty maps that the golf courses provide. Seriously, here’s the map provided by Kulim.
What? This is as bad as Staffield’s map. I mean seriously, how many monkeys does it take to draw something like this? On the website, here are the actual directions:
“it is easily accessible via the 4-lane dual carriage Butterworth-Kulim Expressway which forms a part of the East-West Highway. This highway links Kulim Hi-Tech Park directly with the North-South Highway at the Seberang Jaya Intechange, Penang International Airport, the North Butterworth Container Terminal and the Penang Port.”
Umm. OK. Which part of directions to golf course is the writer missing here? He’s talking about the highway, for sakes! It just shows how tepid Malaysian golf course website writers, very much like our police force. Providing heaps of useless information, but never the relevant ones. OK, gilagolf directions:
There, simple. If you still can’t get it, I’ll assume you need it in Braille format. I don’t think you should be driving anyway.
Price (3 /5)
We also selected Kulim because it was ridiculously cheap. With the weekday and with the top premier vouchers, we paid only RM30 per person, with buggy. RM30! That’s like dinner for me and my wife daily! Of course before you get too carried away, there’s probably a reason why this course is so cheap; aside from the fact that it’s pretty deep in. We’ll explore it later, but at RM30, it could be as bad as cowdung and we might still be able to forgive it.
First thoughts
Kulim, at the first tee kinda reminded me of UPM, which makes sense. It looks like a jungle course, without any of the open spaces we had experienced in Bukit Jawi a day earlier. Like UPM, with my cranky drive, my best bet would be to keep it in the fairway and keep it safe. Unfortunately, rain was pelting down as soon as we teed off, and we knew we were all going to be in for a long day.
Service (2 /5)
Not much experience with the service, except the lady at the counter took an exceptionally long time to register us. There was about 3 flights over all, to be fair to her, and after that debacle at Bukit Jawi (where halfway through our case, the woman declared she had to eat lunch and left), Kulim was at least good enough to get us onto our buggies and into the course before we started to grow a beard each…including the ladies.
And….NO CADDY!! YEAAY! I like courses without caddies to bother you and think of how much to tip them.
Fairways (3 /5)
With the downpour, fairways were soggy. To be fair to Kulim, it fared a little better than say, KRTU when it rained. At least we had minimum embedded balls, and more importantly, no casual water. In fact, the drainage was very good.
Don’t expect too many broad fairways in Kulim. It plays a little tight, especially the north course, so it might be wise to hone up your three-wood off the tee.
Greens ( 1/5)
While the fairways survived the pelting rain, the greens did not fare very well. Due to poor maintenance, the greens were inconsistent. Some were sanded, some had grass as long as the fairway, and some both. I guess maintenance is pretty expensive, and judging by the amount of traffic we saw there, I don’t think there were too many people playing this course. Then again, I bet at 5, those managers from the surrounding factories in Kulim Hi-tech park will pour out into the course and hack it up.
Rough (1 /5)
You can always tell by the bunkers and boy the bunkers are really not so great in Kulim. Aside from the rocks threatening to scratch and split your clubs, it was just hard packed dirt. In fact, there was once I actually putted out of the bunker onto the green! True it was raining, but there was also overgrown grass at the side, so hitting a couple into it, it was a hard search for the balls.
Aesthetics (2 /5)
Surprisingly, Kulim actually looks nice. We caught it on a gloomy day for sure, so I’m thinking if there was sun, and we had some shadows, it would definitely be worth a shot. Elevation helps. Like Jawi, some drops were pretty extreme.
The first tee will require a precise cut into the middle, before it opens up to the green. I smashed my first shot so far right, I think I killed a kelapa sawit worker. The par 3 3rd in the North course is a hooker’s nightmare, with water on the left, but reminded me very much of the second hole in Bangi. Perhaps the most picturesque hole on the course is the par 3 7th on the North course. It’s an intrepid 185 meters from the elevated tee to the semi island green. It’s definitely not something we want to try with the rain pelting down. But amazingly, everyone got on the green from my flight. Behind our flight, the 4 guys all crashed and burned in the water.
From there, the course sorts of meander on with pretty much the same scenary, till we reach the 18th hole on the east course, again a textbook par 4 reminiscent of the par 4 hole in Bangi where we try to smash one –on from an elevated tee. I think it’s a great ending hole, so kudos to Kulim…you have passed the Gilagolf aesthetic test! Now we certify that your course does not look like a piece of dung.
Fun Factor ( 2/5)
Fun? It was hard to have fun in a british open weather like the one that caught us. It might have been a great round, otherwise, so we’ll just leave it at 2. The par 3 was really an eye opener, but aside from that and aside from the ending hole, there wasn’t much wow in Kulim. It’s sort of a mixture of UPM, Bangi and Kundang kind of lay out.
Conclusion
This review does sound a little languid. Kulim is one of those courses that’s neither here nor there. You can’t really get too angry with a club that’s willing to let you play for 30RM and not have a crowd. So in that sense, Kulim was an easy, relaxing experience. As for it being premium and having a wow factor, it doesn’t. It’s there, it’s just like one of the peripheral characters in a movie that you don’t really notice or care for. It’s Lando Clarisan to Han Solo, it’s Sallah to Indiana Jones, it’s that tribal leader’s best friend in Avatar, I don’t even know his name. Darn, he sure is obscure.
The good: Price is cheaper than most of your haircuts; travel isn’t too difficult; surprisingly reasonable fairway and interesting aesthetics; good par 3 7th and a good ending hole to take home.
The bad: Greens are not well kept; rough is also unkept, and bunkers not well maintained; pretty much ordianary layout, reminiscent to Kundang and Bangi; why did we travel to Kedah again?
The skinny: 17 of 40 divots (42.5%). We do recommend Kulim, if you are in the area and you’re a little tight on moolahs or have spent it all in Penang makan. It offers a reasonable experience of golf, nothing more.
Kulim GRC Information
Address:Pesiaran Kulim Golf,
Kulim Golf & Country Resort,
Kulim Hi-Tech Park, 09000
Kulim, Kedah Darul Aman,
Malaysia
Contact: +604-4032828
Fax: +604-4032888
Email: kgcr@tm.net.my
Website:http://www.khtp.com.my/krdbweb/images/golf/golf1.htm
