Gilanalysis 16: Kinrara

Handicap:20

Gross: 92

Net: 72

Verdict: Two Birds, Two Pars and a Whole lot of Misses

What Happened

Kinrara. I played there earlier this year, had two pars and one birdie. And scored 92.

And my scores were 46-46. Which. Is. Exactly. The. Same. Score. Today.

Yikes, there’s some kind of twillight zone going on here for me!

The first hole is a Ginnifer Hole (meaning, wide, welcoming, you-will-never-mess this-up kind of hole), and yet, I managed to snap hook the heck out of my ball and into the big monsoon drain like 30 miles off from the fairway. I whacked a Triple on a Ginnifer. Crap start. I don’t remember EVER tripling this hole. Ever.

It was a rough start, but things turned around on hole 5, which is fast becoming my favourite hole, although it’s bloody difficult. A six iron was stuffed 3 feet from the hole, today, an accessible front pin. The thing is from Hole 1 to Hole 6, there is only one semi difficult hole, which is the par 5 second. Others are scoring holes. The 4th and 6th are baby par 4s. The 3rd is a baby par 3. But yet, in two games in Kinrara, I am +6 and +8 over these easy holes respectively. WHY SO LOUSY-LA??

I steadied the ship a bit with two pars on the ending holes, but the back nine was just a tale of misses. Miss drives, miss chips, miss putts, and mostly miss irons. The only high point was hitting a hybrid to 10 feet on the devilish hole 17, and sinking the uphill curler to take the game.

Why I Sucked (or WHY KINRARA SUCKED)

I usually don’t blame the course, but Kinrara really sucked. It has gone down the toilet since the last time I played. The fairways are HORRIBLE. An idiot forgot to turn off the sprinkler on hole 2 on the fairway. I think it has been weeks since it has been flowing, because the grass underneath has changed to moss (the ones you see in the monsoon drain), and turned to deep red. Like blood. What the heck?? The entire fairway was squishy, and the greens were not pressed and were in terrible need of maintenance. The rough? Holy cow. Almost Beruntung-like. Toilet seat standard. Terrible. I hit a good shot on the 11th over the trees to the left of the bunker and boom, 4 pair of eyes couldn’t find it. On hole 8, my 60 degree second shot flew the flag into a crowd of Bangladeshis just standing around a tractor chit chatting. They were literally standing on the green, and refused to move even when we shouted fore. Jeez! What the heck is wrong with the people here?!?!

All over, Kinrara is really in a bad shape. I’d advise gilagolfers to go somewhere else. They’re doing some maintenance in the clubhouse till October, and even the dressing room is in a sorry condition. No aircond. That’s just stupid. Most of the showers are not working. No water. The ones working (about 2, smelling like urine and faeces) had water that smell and taste like rust. On top of that, the renovation work is being hammered on top of the changing room, so you are suddenly filled with this awesome phobia that the roof will come down on top of you and you die, naked, in the a shower smelling like shit and urine. Come on, Kinrara, that’s just pathetic.

Ok, I played badly also, I admit, with my driver struggling as usual, and my irons and chips in such a crap state that I don’t really know what to do, except to continue doing what I do: duff, top, thin, fat. Sigh.

Not So Sucked

Let me see….not so suck….umm. Birdies were good, so the putting was reasonably ok…then again, I was experimenting with an old putter. I am a promiscuous putter-er in that sense, I like to change putters and experiment with blades, offsets, inserts, and what not. Oh yeah, I also was striping it with my hybrid and 3 wood, traditionally my bogey clubs. Feels good to hit 180 off the deck.

What to Work On

Wow, ok, let’s start with the driver. Fix it, please. I will figure it out on the range I guess. Irons are just up and down, off and on. I sound like a broken record, going about these two areas of the game over and over…..and over…and over…..

A Tale of Two Cities: Juve to Liverpool

Juventus crest The words "Liverpool Football Club" are in the centre of a pennant, with flames either side. The words "You'll Never Walk Alone" adorn the top of the emblem in a green design, "EST 1892" is at the bottom.

OK, nothing to do with Golf for once.

The football season has just ended, so that means many Saturday and Sunday nights of idleness and boredom for 90% of the male population in Malaysia and restful nights for my wife (we have a mamak opposite our place, so, yep, every goal is a nightmare to her). So after next week’s big game, we’ll be officially in the off season.

So anyways, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find it so uncanny that Juventus has an almost mirror image in the Barclay’s in Liverpool. So much so, that this season, I have become a secondary Liverpool fan (since I can’t seem to catch Juve playing often!). I mean think about it:

1. Both Suck. At the moment.

2011 was tough for Juve. I mean, how the heck did the promise of 2010 (when they were 4th place), turn into such a nightmare as 2011. 4-1 to Parma?? 3-0 to Napoli?? 2-1 to Palermo?? And Liverpool? Exact opposites. 2010 was horrendous for them thanks to a certain coach. Who sucked. But they turned it arround in 2011. Where are we both? 7th and 6th place.

2. Legends at the Helm.

Liverpool has King Kenny. Now, Juve has King Conte. Ok, that’s probably a bad name but both are legends respectively.

3. Players Exchange

Liverpool to Juventus:Alberto Aquilani. Juventus to Liverpool: Christian Poulsen. Guess who got the better deal?

4. Rivalry with Champions

Juve hates Inter. Liverpool hates Manchester United. Ok, Inter isn’t the champion anymore, but who cares.

5. Crap results with crap team, good results with great teams.

It’s like a mirror image. Juve beats Inter. Liverpool thrashes Manchester United. Liverpool beats Chelsea–twice, Juve beats Lazio twice. Liverpool beats Man City, Juve beats AC Milan. Juve’s bogey team: Napoli. Liverpool’s: Spurs. Liverpool collected 14 points from the top 5 team, Juventus collected 17. That’s pretty impressive stuff.

6. Super Midfield Flops

Liverpool has Joe Cole this season. Juve had Diego last season.

7. Super Legend Captains

Liverpool has Gerrard. Juve has Del Piero. Both have spent their entire careers with ONE Club. Ah, loyalty.

8. Mirror Achievements

Liverpool was the most successful club in English Football (until last week), Juventus is the most successful club in Italy. Even by ranking, Juve and Liverpool both have 11 International club titles, both rank 6 in the world.

9. Derby with not so great clubs

Liverpool overshadows Everton. But Liverpool actually was birthed from Everton. Juventus overshadows Torino. But Torino was birthed from Juventus. But since Torino is in the toilet for some time, Juventus now picks fights with Fiorentina, for weird reasons. Strange.

10. History

Both are founded in 1890s due to splits with other clubs. Even their fanbase is similar, with locals in Liverpool preferring Everton (at least, that’s what I hear), and local Turin preferring Torino. Liverpool and Juve both have huge fanbase outside of their home cities.

And of course, Heysel 1985 forever linked these two clubs together. Like Forever.

So much for my football gilanalysis. Enough of that. Time for GOLF!

The Old Clubs Challenge

I’m trying to create an old school set to experiment on the course. We’ve been talking about really making Gilagolf Gila (or crazy), and might be interesting to play this dratted game with the OLDEST clubs in your possession (or you can get a hold of from your grand pappy’s storeroom), and see if our scores remain the same.

By the way, for all the clubs below, if anyone can shed light on the year of make, or year of production, it would be excellent!

So far I’ve cobbled up the following:

Is it me, or does anyone else think this is the coolest thing ever found in golf? I mean look at it….it’s an actual WOOD! It’s persimmon me thinks and this is why when youngsters ask, “Why do we call it a 3 wood when it ain’t a wood?”, you can go “Such a young punk, never appreciate the finer things of life.” This is my big dog, the big mama. The driver.

This is the big dog’s little brother, the really thrashed up 4 WOOD. I don’t think I can hit it any more, but darn, they look good together.

Ok, never mind, I’m gonna put this ‘newer’ Blue Ridge 3 wood in my bag. Also, I have a spare driver and what do you know, it’s the same loft as my 2010 Cobra driver!

Now in case my 3 wood breaks on the course, I have an additional one, the modern looking Taylormade BURNER. yeah! Super Technology!!

OK, I have Blue Ridge irons 3,5 and 9 so I’m using these. These look terrific.

And yes, my all time favourite set, the Ping Zing, which I have a few loose irons, mixed with the equally sexy Ping Eye2.

For my 60 degree, an extremely old Wilson Lob Wedge, and here’s my favourite weapon of ALL TIME:

The vintage Sam Snead  putter…this is legendary, because it’s just flat. It’s way before the classical Anser shape, no offset, no inserts, no cavities…those are for sissys. Welcome to a man’s putter. Rock on.

With that, and an old scaly, snake skin Ping Bag, I’m ready to go. We can play our old clubs challenge.

Propose a stableford point system, with 1 point for using clubs older than 10 years, 2 points for 20 years, 3 points for 25 years, 4 points for 30 years, and 5 points for any old junk before 1981.

Hack away!!

Gilanalysis 15: Staffield West and South

Handicap:20

Gross: 95

Net: 75

Verdict: I don’t understand why my clubs don’t come to work together?

What Happened + Mini Review

Staffield has always been a course that pretty consistently gives us high marks. Surprisingly, this is the first time I ever got a chance to review the West course. So aside from a gilanalysis, this is going to be a mini review of Staffield West. So away we go!

Some courses are easy on the eyes, the same way some women are, or some cars are: they don’t overwhelm you with massive good looks and just welcomes you home like a best friend, neither do they resemble a discarded banana skin on their best day. Case in point:

Something homely like Ginnifer:

vs something not so homely:

You don’t ever wanna get caught in a course that resembles the second one….take that, Bukit Beruntung, Frasers and Selesa Hills!

Staffield is Ginnifer Goodwin, welcoming, relaxed, homely…like a guy’s best girl friend whom you won’t fall in love with, but whom you like to hang around and talk crap to and crack stupid jokes with. Ah, good old college days.

I digress. Once you are on the first tee on the homely, inviting, best friend Ginnifer West course, you’ll be watched by no less than 20 people (as the tee off for the North course is NEXT to you), but looking at the HUGE fairway on the opening par 5 will make you feel a whole lot better…and we did, with each of us stripping down the fairway and strutting to our buggies like we were pros. Obviously, we all descended into the duffing, topping and whiffing hackers we all are in reality after that. But hey, first tee jitters: BEGONE!

The second hole is an inviting straight par 4, which after a good drive, I was set up with an 8 that I proceeded to duff. 3 on, 3 putted and back to life, back to reality of Golf Hacking.

The par 4 third is a really very picturesque hole, with water on the left of the green, and a grand view over the next hole, which has an intimidating tee shot for hookers. Thankfully I have seemed to graduate from a hooker on my misses to a slicer…which might seem like a strange progress, but it’s true what they say, you can talk to a fade but not to a draw, meaning, slice misses seems a little better for me in keeping the ball in play. I mean, have you ever duck hooked before? It doesn’t stand a chance, it just goes 50 meters or so and skitters into a drink or kills someone in the next flight. A banana slice miss at least goes further and higher, and at least you can align yourself for that miss. It probably makes no sense, but nothing much in my golf game makes sense.

At this point, after starting with a par, I have proceeded to make a mess of my irons and my putts to double bogey 3 holes, before sorting out with a bogey on the par 5 5th, a narrow tee shot that opens up considerably after that. It’s surrounded with forest so, as usual, keep the dang ball on the fairway and you’ll manage this.

The par 3 8th (like the one on southern) is probably the best looking hole for us. It’s a short par 3 at 130 meters, with water on the left, and an elevated tee shot. I didn’t take a picture because a phone call came, but trust me, it’s still an intimidating 130 meters to the green.

The last hole, like Southerm requires you to blast past the water to the dogleg right, elevated green, which makes it awesomely hard to reach in two. But it passed what we call ‘Last Hole Test’, which is to make sure the final hole doesn’t resemble the underside of a toilet seat (such as Harvard’s final hole), so people leave with good impression. Staffield West is a must play.

Why I Sucked

Putts. It doesn’t look like I had too many 3 putts, but I made a lot of good chips that stopped within 3-5 feet of the hole. I missed, I think 3 3 footers, and 2 more within 4-5 feet. Putts I should be making in my sleep just didn’t fall.Plus the greens were devilish. Not bad, but difficult, for some reason. The speed was quick on the first few holes, and then it slowed down considerably, causing us to putt like lizards on cocaine.

IRONS. Especially my stupid pitching wedge, 9 iron and 8 iron. These are scoring irons, the bread and butter of golfers. And I managed to play HORRENDOUS with them. Two GIRs means CRAP irons. While my driver was working overtime, my iron days was best summed up on the easy hole 14. I had about 110 meters left to the green. An easy pitching wedge in hand and I completely whiffed it into bunker. 15th, same, easy fairway 9 iron big pull to the left and a duff chip caused my double bogey. And hole 16, an easy pitching wedge again push right. I don’t get it…this never happens on the range, where I can hit 6/10 times the driving range green and come here to play like a Phillipino Tarsier being jabbed with morphine.

Not So Sucked

If there was a positive, driver would be it. I drove very well overall, except for a few bad ones here and there, but still managed to escape those due to the generosity and welcoming nature of Ginnifer Staffield. My driver distance has been shortened due to my insistence on playing for a fade instead of draw, so that my misses are slices instead of hooks (read above for a full dissertation of this amazing strategy), but I’m getting it more in play, and I am SURE sooner or later, when my putting, driver, irons and short game come together, I will be able to pull of a 39 on a 9 hole like I did in Harvard. Some day.

What to Work On

I am almost this close to giving up practicing on the range, and save up my money to buy an iphone or something. It’s quite useless to play so well on range and hack around like a grave digger when it actually matters. I was fortunate to be playing on a Ginnifer course today….if I brought this game to a discarded banana skin course like Bukit Beruntung, I would have shot like 10 strokes worse.

Seve Ballesteros was truly Gilagolf

In our group, when one of us manage to pull off a great sand shot that lands within a foot of the hole, another guy in the group would routinely squawk, “Phil Mickleson!” in tribute to the fat guy that once challenged Tiger and who can pull off ridiculous shots with his wedge, in his sleep, while having grandular fever.

However, when we manage to pull off an impossible escape shot (which to us, so far, counting is about 1 in 6,456 swings of the blasted club) we have a term for it. We ‘Ballesteros’-ed it. Or, the same squawk will come, only with the more awsome: “YOU ARE THE SEVE BALLESTEROS…”

It’s amazing how much us hackers pay tribute to a guy that most of us have not even watch before…I mean, Seve was way before our time. When we started guy, it was for the black guy in Sunday red, not a Spanish matador in bell bottoms. But as Ballesteros passes away this week, I managed to look at some of his shots, and realise that this is the guy that embodies Gilagolf. He’s an inspiration to the hacker because he misses as many fairways as us! Granted, he can do probably a trillion more shots than the average hack, but hey, he seems like a fun dude to play with. He seems like a guy you’d want in your sixers team. He seems like a guy that would compete and kill for a 15-5-5 game not for the money, but for the pure joy of thrashing the living daylights out of the competition.

So here’s Ballesteros in all his top 5 hacker glory:

1) Fall on your knees: How many times have we always tried to attempt this shot, only to completely whiff it and break our spine? Countless….

2) Nightmare to play against: How do you hate a guy like this when you think you can one-up on him only for him to mock you with save after save? It’s like: “Golf is so bloody boring, let me level the playing field with these losers by playing from all the bushes and jungle….”

3) We’ve seen this guy called Kevin Na shoot 16 from a similar position. Seve? He bogeys it. Take that!

4) This is the most ridiculous save ever. And there’s so many more like it from this guy.

5) And finally, the famous birdie from the parking lot “Parking Lot Champion”, truly the a gila shot reminiscent to 99% of our drives. To all the hacks out there: Never give up on your golf, no matter how crap we play, in memory of Gilagolfer Seve.

Comedic Malaysia – How much the Rice?

I know this is a golf blog, but sometimes–rarely–there are topics that completely transcends type, categories and style and simply become universal topics to be written, commented on and opined on, and in the past couple of months, our great motherland Malaysia has continuously spewed up such comedic gems, it’s difficult not to look on without cracking up.

Starting with the initiative to bring back talent, Malaysia’s comedy hit its nadir at the recent unveiling of the 1Malaysia email concept. As of now, there are probably 22 trillion posts internet-wide on its widespread stupidity so I’m not going to add to it. I just want to bring to attention what we have always faced when reading other reviews of golf courses throughout Gilagolf’s existence: the guarantee of the existence of B.S in humanity as a whole.

Possibly the funniest article I have read today is

http://my.news.yahoo.com/1-malaysia-email-users-must-sign-up-with-025158827.html

Basically, just saying we needed to BUY a USB from Tricubes to use their email and to give money to them to help them buy their Mercedes S-Classes. But their CEO is truly the raja lawak (Comedy King) of Malaysia and just completely goes off the blocks with these statements:

“Our default setting is a basic Secure Sockets Layer, which is quite secure” – Whenever we hear the word, ‘Quite’, especially from a CON-Sultan, it technically means, “Ah crap, I have no idea what I am BSing about, but hopefully I will talk really fast before some smart alec asks me to explain what the shitaake is Secure Sockets Layer. I think it’s a dress style from ancient Mongolia…”

“Even with the friendly emails, and without the billing, everything is through SSL. Users can also send personal emails to their friends and it would be completely free.”

Friendly emails, as opposed to emails designed to suck all our hard-earned, bound for the golf course, ringgits into their hands. The last part is a revelation, as he’s speaking as if it’s such a novelty to send personal emails to our friends (as opposed to enemies, which is what Gmail is used for), and wait for it…..IT IS COMPLETELY FREE! Wow, thank you Mr BS CEO, we worship you for such a killer service!

“those who wish to send emails to myemail.my accounts will have to pay a maximum of 50 sen an email, adding that Tricubes aims to sign up 5.4 million users by year-end.”

So, ok…I think it’s a miscue here…send “TO”?? You mean, “FROM” Mr BS CEO?  Anyways, now we need to pay 50 sen to send out one (ONE) email. And they are going to force (likely at gunpoint as in how its done in a concentration camp) 33% of the nation’s internet users to sign up for it. On average, I send out an average 30 emails a day, so that means I am paying RM15 per day to use their wonderful free, USB based quite secure SSL system. I.e RM5,475 per year to use email. So if I am an average user (and my volume is LOW compared to other corporates), these guys have a forecast of RM29,565,000,000 of revenue..which is ummm, RM29 Billion, which puts TriCubes 3 times the valuation of Twitter. Wow. I’d love to work as their janitor. Please let me.

And the scary, scary thing is this: Malaysian Insider understands that Tricubes is pinning its hopes on the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Internal Revenue Board (IRB) to sustain the service through pension and tax notifications.

Time to take out as much as possible from the EPF before they do such an idiotic thing as that.

Why-la, do we constantly let these bunch of clowns take advantage of our kindness and loyalty to motherland Malaysia, only for someone to say, “Malaysians generally has brains the size of planktons. There, their brains are this tiny….”:

1 Malaysia email users must sign up with USB device, NRD offices

Anyways, to end it, I also read that we’re going to blow away RM18 Million to bring 300 english teachers to teach us how to talk and write proper England…

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysia-to-hire-300-us-english-tutors

RM18 million is a lot of Golf games. Why not just bring 1 guy in and teach all the teachers? We’ve got seriously, really really magnificent English teachers teaching our kids at school,evidenced by this actual question asked in an actual school:

Which brings an end to this Gilalogy, and this classic YouTube of how Malaysia BS is truly alive and kicking in every aspect of our lifestyle here in wonderful Malaysia (skip the first minute, the hilarity begins after):

So here’s the tribute to every TriCube, Government and English Teachers who has ‘How Much The Rice’-ed the crap out of us!

P/S – Of course, the golf news is that the Houdini of Golf, Seve Ballesteros who could put Mickleson in his back pocket on short game, has passed on due to brain tumor. What a genius, and an inspiration to all hackers to attempt the 170 yard, on our knees, escape shot.

Harvard GCC

Introduction

It’s been a while since I got to play on any new courses, hence the gilagolf updates have been generally about analysis and random nonsense about anything under the sun, that probably have left fellow gilagolfers feeling a little delusioned about where this humble site is heading…fear not, as long as there remains a course to be hacked in (and if budget or sponsors permit) and out of Malaysia, gilagolf will continue to exist, to bring realistic reviews and crap courses to the light of day.

And here we have Harvard Golf and Country Club, the pride of Kedah. And just in case you’re wondering if there’s any association with this Harvard:

This will set your mind at ease:

The vast difference of class is only obvious if you scrutinize the awesome tradition in their entrance into their respective hallowed grounds. For the thick headed, I am obviously being incredibly sarcastic.

Actually, to give Harvard (the Kedah one) credit, they do have a reasonably OK website, which means it’s far better than most of the courses reviewed on this site. But they can forget about a random googler ending up in their site by searching ‘Harvard’, because it’s probably number 1,128,453 on the search list. More on the website later. Now, to the course!

Travel ( 2/5)

OK, if you’re gonna start a website, for goodness sakes, put some decent direction to your place. It’s not as if we know where the heck is this elusive Harvard golf course by reputation…or is it considered so exclusive that it needs to be hidden from the world?

But I’ll be honest here, I was actually searching for Permaipura Golf course to play, but because of Permaipura’s inability to place any obvious signs whatsoever to the transient golfer to see, I ended up shooting past and after seeing the Harvard Golf Course sign, quickly turned into it before I ended up at the border of Thailand. Great signs Permaipura..you haven’t even been reviewed and your travel is already a 0.

Anyhoos, there’s always GPS (which I did not have) and it’s a straightforward, if not a little long: North South Highway. Head towards Sungai Petani. Pass Cinta Sayang on the right, wish you were playing there, then drive straight on and exit and the Sungai Petani (U) turnoff. ‘U’ stands for Utara, meaning North.  Once turned off, turn right at the traffic light, and keep going the trunk road. You will pass a small town eventually and just look for the signs that says Harvard on the right. Turn right and boom, you’re there. It’s a 2 for being straight forward and for collecting all the lost souls looking for that dratted Permaipura sign.

Price ( 2/5)

Saturday morning, I know, it’s not easy to get cheap price, even in KL. In kinrara, it would be around 100 plus with a voucher, and in Harvard, I got to play for RM60, with a buggy as well using my special voucher. It’s reasonable, but as we would later see, if it’s a reasonable course, but for a course that resembles UPM or worse, that horrendouse Royal Johor Crap Course we just played in late last year, RM98 (without voucher), is a tad bit steep.

First thoughts

The course is really old. In fact, it was built in 1927, making it one of the oldest golf courses in Malaysia…Royal Selangor could be the oldest at 1893, but I am told there is another older course, I don’t know where. But hey, 1927 is 84 years old, which is pretty long, so there’s gotta be some pretty good tradition here and hopefully the review won’t bash the course up too badly.

First of, the course looked extremely familiar….it could have been UPM, or God forbid, the Royal Johor Course, in which case it would be better to simply apply electrocution to oneself than to play on such courses, but I suppose old golf courses pretty much resemble the same.

Service ( 2/5)

Now, the service was pretty ok, as the girl behind the counter was kind enough to find me a solution when the buggies were all out. After giving her my standard story of driving all the way from KL to play on the great Harvard course, the oldest course in Kedah with all it’s fine tradition, she convinced the marshal to hand me his buggy to put me on my merry way. So why 2? Because aside from the good human service, the rest of the service, especially the buggies, are as lousy as TMNet’s customer service, which generally is just lower than being serviced by a rabid hyena frothing from disease. The buggies, all made in 1927 using pulley systems, takes at least 10 seconds to crank up and start. I am NOT kidding. In fact, the poor guy I was playing with, Edward, with his wife were stuck with a buggy that took twice as long as mine to crank up. We would each respectively step on our throttle and wait, while chit chatting about politics and see which buggy starts up first. They definitely take being the ‘oldest’ course in Kedah seriously. At times, you just wish you had a hole on the buggy floor so you can Flintstone your way through the dratted course.

Fairways (2/5)

You really cannot expect a whole lot from a course that calls itself Harvard. I am not even going to go further on why the name is after the most prestigious instituition in the entire history of the known world, next to Penang Char Kueh Teow. The fairways were not atrocious (please, bring back memories of the mother of all crap course, Bukit Beruntung), it was functional cow grass, but nothing much in terms of proper maintenance.

Greens ( 4/5)

Of all the surprising thing I learnt in this trip, and this includes the fact that the Lorong Selamat Char Kueh Teow in Penang is actually crap, the greens in Harvard is actually very good. And I don’t mean it in a sarcastic sense. I expressed my surprise (akin to finding a diamond ring in the middle of a pile of cowdung) and my member playing partner, Edward (the one who had to crank his buggy 20 seconds) proudly declared that the greens were the pride of Harvard. Which is really saying something, because as I looked around Harvard, it does seem to labour somewhat to maintain the course with a total of 1 person in the payroll. The greens, though a little slow, were consistent through the course and had very good roll. The undulation also gives some variety and overall, very nice experience on the greens.

Rough (1/5)

The rough was bad though. Leaves strewn all over the place, it’s obvious that maintenance budget has been slashed to under RM100 per year, poor guys. The one thing I found extremely annoying were the bunkers. They were absolutely horrible. The size of rocks and stones there made it impossible to hit a bunker shot without denting the clubs, and in one instance I did. From then on, it was an auto matic free drop whenever it entered a bunker. And of course, the eternal fight with wild boards continue. Almost every hole bears the battle scars, wild boars digging up the rough, looking for grubs. I hate you, wild boars! I’ll make a soup out of your entire species!! But still, the course has the prerogative to defend itself against these attacks and sadly, Harvard utterly failed. Come on, Harvard. If you excel in the green, it doesn’t mean you need to balance your Yin and Yang with horrendous rough. Why can’t you stay excellent for all time??

Aesthetics (2 /5)

There is a saying of ‘growing old gracefully’, which is to say, people who get older looks better. Harvard isn’t one of them. Frankly, the aesthetics wasn’t extremely ugly, nor was it very pretty. It’s simple. If you have rubber trees as part of your landscaping, you are not going to look very nice. Harvard has live rubber trees that are still being tapped as part of its course. Not funny when it stinks. And there are certainly some holes that purely stank of wild boar shit. The rough was of course, full of evidence of the wild boars, so it has to be their crap that filled the air. Yuck.

The saving grace is the Guthrie nine. The first hole of Guthrie nine actually looks nice, with towering, aged trees lining the fairway. It gets slightly prettier with some water features in the later holes, but they were all stagnant.

The worse is the last hole, par 5 on Guthrie. It is UGLY. It’s not a pretty hole at all. First of all, from the tee, you can only see the fairway as it hills over the other side. Once crossed the hill, you have the awesome sight of one ugly club house and a horrendously underwhelming green protected by a murky swamp, and lined with skeletons from dead golfers. What a rubbish ending, Harvard.

And ok, you know how annoying it is when the website gives bad information, or outrightly lies about their course. Which is why gilagolf is here, as the beacon of truth to expose these lies. In the intro (http://www.harvardhotel.com.my/intro.html) it says:

With its cool mountain air that calms the senses and hilly terrains that invigorate the soul, Kedah’s idyllic nature became popular amongst the northern elite.

That’s complete BS, sorry. What cool mountain air? The nearest mountain is the one you can see on the 16th, 17th hole, which is about 800 miles away. The last I remembered, I was being fried like a Vietnamese cockroach as I tried in vain to get my dratted buggy to start. And the terrain isn’t hilly at all. There’s hardly any elevation on the course, making it as mouldy as a 15 year old bread. It’s just a field that happens to have a few holes and flags. I don’t know about the northern elite, if it’s so, Harvard needs to revamp its images and fix their stupid buggies.

This is my favourite:

Where east meets west and modern convenience complements Mother nature, Harvard Jerai is your ideal gateway to relax and fraternise. Welcome to Harvard Jerai. The land where “Eagles” rest, stay and play.

I don’t get the east meets west. What the tarnation do you mean? Is there some sort of Chinese/Siamese influence in your architecture, along with british colonial designs? All I see is a hut for the club house that bears remarkable resemblance of my mechanic’s car workshop in Old Town. And really, if this isn’t another golf course that promotes ‘Eagles’ as if just by saying that word, it would turn us all hackers into ultra professional Tiger Woods golfers. Try it. “Eagle”. Darnit I am still duffing the ball!!

Fun Factor ( 2/5)

I ended up in Harvard by mistake thanks to Permaipura’s inability to direct lost golfers. Harvard isn’t extremely difficult, and the Guthrie nine does sport  huge expanses of fairways for some holes. I was scoring very well for the Guthrie, starting with 5 pars over 6 holes, and a chip in bogey save on the index 2 16th. I ended shooting my best 9 hole score at 39…which balanced out my terrible front nine of 48. There were many bail out opportunities in Guthrie nine, so I think for a guy with a crocked but reasonably long swing, it presents some scoring opportunities derived from lousy drives.

Was it fun overall? Not really. The rough was a real let down, coupled with badly maintained bunkers, I was just looking forward for the round to end eventually. The real letdown, was the ending hole on Guthrie. It’s as if the designers just sort of gave up on that hole and decided, heck it, the golfers are probably having mirages of Catherine Zeta Jones by now they won’t even know the difference if we put a chimpanzee in front of them.

Conclusion

Harvard is a mix bag. Some good stuff like the greens are real surprises, especially in such a secluded area that you’d think even David Livingstone won’t come. The customer service was friendly, but the buggy was crappy. The course overall was in ok condition, but when you have dirt roads and mud for your buggy track, you know that Harvard is probably not the right name to give this club.

The good: Travel is pretty deep in, but once there you can get on the course pretty quickly; the greens are in good condition and consistent throughout; Guthrie nine plays easier to me, and it looks way better than Jerai nine (Harvard nine is close, indefinitely, and the forest has reclaimed it).

The bad: The buggies truly suck, you need 10 seconds everytime you stop to restart it; rough is horrible, sand is unplayable; horrible ending hole on Guthrie; an absolutely daft name to call a golf course; aesthetically resembles the rearend of a Mongolian Llama, and a terribly deceitful website.

The skinny: 17 of 40 divots (42.5%). Wow, Harvard just avoided being categorized as Waste of Time and Money. This is a real borderline case. I don’t think I’ll ever return to Harvard unless forced to, but it really depends on how crap/good the other golf courses in this region is. Suffice to say, if you had the chance, you might want to try another course but if you get lost searching for Permaipura, I suppose this is a reasonable alternative to play on.

Harvard GCC Scorecard

Harvard GCC Information

Address:Harvard Golf Resort (Jerai) Berhad

Harvard Golf and Country Club

No 6 Persiaran Guthrie

Harvard Suasana Resort 08100 Bedong Kedah

Contact: +604-4586887

Fax: +604-4586782

Email: nirmala.vijayan@simedarby.com

Website: http://www.harvardhotel.com.my/

Bukit Beruntung GCR – East Course

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

Kulim GCR

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.

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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.

Kulimmap1

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:

Kulimmap2

kulimdir

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

kulimavatar


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.

IMG_1257.jpg picture by gilagolf

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

Gilanalysis 14: Bukit Kemuning

Handicap:20

Gross: 87

Net: 67

Verdict: Second sub 90 round of the year!

What Happened

I was actually feeling better about my swing since practicing a bit after the embarrassment at Templers. And Bukit Kemuning, famous for its runway, huge fairways seems like a course that would allow us to boost a little self esteem. Also, Bukit Kemuning is flat as…a runway…..I refrain from the obvious simile that most men are familiar with, because this is a family friendly golf blog.

Anyways, we all know Bukit Kemuning completely sucks in terms of service, and that hasn’t change one bit. Registering for the round too nearly as long as having a colonscopy done on you, and when you got to the course, they gave us a caddie who halfway had to run off to take a dump; and couldn’t find any balls, and always stuck to the guy on the fairway. Grr. Also, Bukit Kemuning is expensive. Even with a voucher we forked out close to RM90 due to the stupid “forced caddy” policy, and this is for a course that should cost RM50 for the weekday. It’s not a very good course, to be honest. There’s really nothing nice about it, fairways are bare, no elevation, no undulation on the green…you could possibly play yourself into a coma on this course….but they still cut your throat while you’re in coma.

Anyways, I played pretty well; at one point, going +2 over eight holes with 5 pars, 1 birdie. This is mainly due to a LOT OF BAILOUT courtesy of Bukit Kemuning’s fairways. If I were to play in Seri Selangor, I would have OB’ed 3-4 times with hooks and slices. Six greens in regulations also was a record high for me, but my putter was really up and down today. Basically, yet another tale of missed opportunities.

We all think Bukit Kemuning has generous fairways, but I still only managed to hit 4 fairways, which shows our skills deliberately balances itself to its own crappy nature when playing on ‘easier’ courses….and the course is deceivingly long, so it ain’t as easy as you think!

My 87 was good though, but due to the retarded nature of golf wagers; I ended up losing the most moolahs. Go figure. The other three shot 94,95 and 104 respectively and I lost the most – 5 balls to them. We played the 3-1-1 format for sixers, hence the incredible possibility of being the best player and winding up the biggest loser. AIYA.

Why I Sucked

Putter was completely broke in some holes including missing 3 footers at hole 3, 11, 15 and 16. Drivers, while it doesn’t look like it was also a bit out, but not too much, except for the final hole where I drove a great drive, flew over the fairway and into the small little hazard drain. A good thwack with my hybrid allowed me to salvage a bogey, but I was fuming mad at the course that penalises good hits.

Not So Sucked

As bad as I putted, I still managed two significant bombs. First, a 10 footer to save par on the on the 12th, and right after that, a 30 footer across the green for a birdie on the 13th. But except for a semi shank with my nine on the 10th, my irons were working well. Take that, stupid 8-iron that shanked in my eagle attempt in Bangi….I hold grudges a lot on my irons.

What to Work On

To be fair, I was experimenting yet again with my putter, using my blade. Who’s to say with my mallet I might have putter better? But driver is still WIP, and my play around the greens are absolutely clownish. I.e stick me 30 feet in, and it’s like having a tapir on a tightrope 90 feet in the air. Without a safety net. And hunters shooting at it. While eating a banana. That’s how tense I am.

What is WRONG with Golf Focus?

Ok, I was randomly watching this golf program on Star Sports today called “Golf Focus”. Basically, it’s like Football Focus where three dudes sit in the studio and talk about the sport. Football focus is enough to put me to sleep…but occasionally, Shebby Singh tends to make some out of the world nonsensical, Paula Abdul sort of remark that cracks me up, before I eventually snooze off again, until my wife shovels me up to bed at 3 am.

Now, Golf Focus? Heck, the game is already as boring as it is (although there’s now an attempt to shorten it, like Cricket, calling it Powerplay Golf, which is supposed to condense golf tournaments from 4 days to 3 hours. Don’t laugh, it’s supported by Colin Montgomerie, mainly because he keeps choking on the 4th day, so he hates long golf games and is lobbying to make Augusta a 3 hour fiesta. With a Mardi Gras float.)

Anyway, Golf Focus is currently hosted by this guy called Alan Wilkins (obviously airbrushed):

http://livingmags.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Alan-Wilkins1.jpg

And supported by a guy called Lip Ooi. Yep, that’s his name, and no, it’s not a Hannah Barbara Cartoon character who teams up with Wile E Coyote to hunt down Road Runner. Here’s Lip:

And the ‘golf pro’ is this guy called Richard Harris, and I can’t find a picture of him because his name is so common, it’s the name of a dead actor, a black singer, a criminal, a knight from England, a Puritan in the revolution, a wizard and the brand of a Chinese fertilizer used in the Yong Chow region. I recall the golf focus Richard Harris is bald with a moustache, so I’ll just take the closest resemblance:

Ok, there is a point to this post. For close to an hour, I was between watching this Golf Focus show, picking my nose, clipping my nails, eating a pear and wondering how on blazes did Tiger miss a 2 foot putt for eagle on the 15th at the Augusta. Then, towards the end, the show shifts to the weather forecast (?!?) for some strange reason, mainly because they ran out of things to yammer about, and Lip Ooi was snoring halfway through. The weather forecast was then done by this girl called Kelly Latimer:

Golf Focus, are YOU SERIOUS? No, are you guys at the booth smoking weed, that has blinded all of you to the obvious PROBLEM with Golf Focus, which so far has only accumulated a total of two viewers in the world, that of the 0.1% of my attention, and the attention of my westie Terrier, and that only because he can’t change the channel on my new TV?? You have this girl called Kelly Latimer in your show for a total of 43 seconds, talking about the weather, and for almost an hour, you have those 3 clowns anchoring the show?

From that, my terrier and I conclude that the entire Golf Focus team are on weed, or made out of entirely women staff. Who hates pretty girls. Because they are obviously not pretty.

OK, here we go again, Golf Focus team chooses these group of misfits to handle their show:

Mr Airbrushed-One-Eye-Larger-than-the-Other:

http://livingmags.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Alan-Wilkins1.jpg


Wile E Coyote’s Chinese Partner to Capture the Road Runner:

Moustachioed Bald Man who has many boring opinions of other golfers:

Instead of using:

Hot Girl:

Seriously. Again. This is almost sad.

Again, our general conclusion is that Golf Focus is either run by weed smoking producers or the HOUSEWIVES-AGAINST-PRETTY-GIRLS-IN-FRONT-OF-CAMERA association.