Gilagolf is a malay term meaning “Golf Crazy”.
It started because a few friends and I got pretty frustrated looking for decent reviews of golf courses in Malaysia. I don’t know about you, but for me, if I were to spend a huge amount of money to play (and not to mention, time) on a course, I want to make sure it’s worth it. The thing about golf course reviews is that it’s the same darn thing over and over again:
“Great course!”
“Beautiful scenery”
“Pristine jungle framing the signature hole…”
Everything is so scripted, so predictable. Is Clearwater Sanctuary really that perfect? Nothing bad to say about it? Who writes these reviews? Golfers or just writers who have second hand experience and just piggy back on whatever other people say? I mean I play to a 20 (or more), and I am generally a hacker. Is that particular course good for hackers? I’m tired reading reviews by either second hand tumpang glamour writers or professional golfers who shoots in the 60s or 70s and reaches all greens in 2. If they say the par 5s are reachable in two, I’ll be like, yeah, and you drive like what, 330 metres right?
Face it, if you’re here, you’re likely a hacker. Don’t deny it. We’re part of the 99% golfers out there who play during the weekends and use our off days to travel around hacking other courses, while lying to our bosses where we are.
This site has course reviews written by hackers like me as honestly as possible. These are personal opinions, so if I play a course one time and have a bad experience with say, sandy greens, I’ll say it sucked. I don’t care if it’s freaking Pebble Beach. If we generally did not have fun on the course or someone was rude to us, or a monkey stole my 5-iron, I’ll say it sucked. You might not think so, but you probably had a better experience on that course, probably beer girls following you around.
Hopefully we can have other writers who play on these courses to offer opinions and comments as well and we will incorporate it into the main blog post. Or just get them to write on top of the course review. I’m not a computer guy but I’ll figure how to work this out if there are enough response.
Here’s the breakdown of reviews:
Introduction: All reviews start with a short intro, how we ended up there.
Travel: This is important, because I want to know if I drive all the way to Kelantan to play a course, it better be worth the travel time. Also, how accessible the course is. Mountain courses like Frasers and Camerons will have lower ratings.
Price: Whether we think it’s worth the price. Some courses are expensive, but if the experience is amazing, heck, it’s worth it!
First thoughts: Just initial thoughts when stepping on the course.
Service: How is the staff service, marshal service on the course. This isn’t that vital, but we want to make sure if the caddie calls us crap, we have someway to release our anger, without bashing him up with our 5-iron.
Fairways: How are the fairways being kept? How are the undulation and layout of the fairways? Interesting? Boring?
Greens: Are the greens firm? Soft? Hard? Fast? Slow?
Rough: Generally good rough should make it difficult for us to hit from. But if we lose 5 – 6 balls plugged into the rough, then it sucks, because it’s not supposed to always make our balls disappear. Give it back!!
Aesthetics: This is probably the main thing courses will judge on. Usually a beautiful course covers all sins. Signature holes, memorable holes will be good for rating.
Fun Factor: This is a non-quantifiable rating. Suffice to say, I might be enjoying myself on a birdie run while another might be having a crappy experience, but we try to aggregate this in the group as much as possible. Is this a course we would be returning to?
The good, the bad and the skinny: All courses have good and bad points. The skinny is the aggregation of all the ratings and a final comment on the course.
Instead of rating it each categories with stars, we will use the term ‘divots’ because we always skull the ball so it’s a good reminder for us to take divots, and the more divots the better.
We definitely want to link and be linked. It’s a natural instinct for golfers to want to group together and know people! Mail us at gilagolf78@gmail.com.
Great!
You are right, rating to golf course is always been very subjective. No matter how many criterias you specify or who does it.
For you information, we have planned for a ‘computerized’ malaysia golf course ranking in our portal. The documentation and work flow is prepared….left the programming part. We are working on other parts now. In addition to criteria … less, we added a Appointed panelists as well as Public raters.
Checkout our golf portal :
Malaysia golf community portal
Budakboy Online Golf Stall
Nice and Very2 informative. Good for our money. Before we throw our money just for nothing, this review is very USE FULL…Hope it will continue. My suggestion is you can update timely. Mana la tau they already made an improvement hehe). Visit my site and maybe we can share the LINK. Thanks and Happy Golfing
http://malaysiagolfer.wordpress.com/.
Linked with Budakboy golf. Good deals there!
just wanna ask, there are still a lot more golf courses that are missing in your review list. will you be adding them later or this is just it…? Coz, i’m looking forward to hear more of your reviews. thanks.
Well I try to get good pictures and make a proper review…so there were some courses that i went (A Famosa for instance) that I didn’t have any good pictures, so I’ll review it another time =). The list I have is:
1) A Famosa
2) Orna
3) Awana
4) KGSAS
5) Kajang Hill
6) SIGC
7) Port Dickson
Some harder to play ones might be:
1) Glenmarie
2) Saujana – Cobra
3) KLGCC
4) Sungai Long
5) Mines
Any other list?
bro, you are absolutely right. some golf course are sucks!! Selesa hills is one of it!!
I really got stuck with your blog..good and very lively commentary on courses that you have weeded through. Just take extra care on some whoosh darns and sucking remark..anyway who cares !..comments on any golf courses is subjective. Not their money thrown in anyway..any single cents ‘whacking on’ is worth hundreds of comments.
Additional list of Golf Courses that you may share with us…
- Astana Golf & Country Club (Kuantan Pahang)
- Bukit Beruntung GCR (Rawang Selangor)
- Era Golf & Country Club (Bahau NS)
- Kelab Darul Ehsan (Ampang Jaya S’gor)
- Kelab Golf Sri Morib (Banting S’gor)
- Orna Golf & Country Club (Bemban Melaka)
- Perangsang Templer Golf Club (Rawang S’gor)
- Port Klang Golf Resort
- Serendah Golf Resort (Serendah Jln KL-IPOH)
- Bukit Jana Taiping Golf Resort (Taiping Perak)
- Lanjut Golf & Country Club (Rompin Pahang)
Humm…maybe the above list of golf courses fit in your DAGTH !. We don’t have to wait until you tee tee-off in Pebble Beach or Agusta for that matter !..hehe.
Again, ‘sama-sama’ happy GOLFING
Thanks Gilagolf for your very informative blog!! Keep up the good work and hope you will get back on the golf courses soon….all work and no golf is not healthy!!!
This is a great site on reviews of golf courses in Malaysia.
Will you review those courses in other states (like those listed in the Malaysia Golf Association (http://www.mgaonline.com.my/club.asp) ?
Those in Southern Johor are very affordable. My recent weekday game at new Horizon Hills in Nusajaya was RM120 with lunch.
Austin Hills is also cheap at RM99.
Palm Resort at Senai was good too for a 2D1N (RM598 for double).
Palm Villa was terrible many months ago – not enough towels and there was electrical blackout at the changing rooms and the staff there were just non-chalant about it.
Sebana, Pulai Spring are good places to play too.
Ponderosa has just re-renovated and I heard from my friends that it is good to play there too.
Daiman 18 is a waste of time.
Havent gone that far south to play, but will definitely do that one day!
can i suggest u organize a game so all the gilagolf kaki can meet? cheap2 course la in kl so all can join.
It’s great to see the approach you’ve taken with this site. Very personalized and incredibly fun read.
If you or any of your readers are looking to learn more about golf communities outside of Malaysia, we recommend looking into Canadian golf courses.
The Links at Crowbush Cove overlooks the north shore dunes of Prince Edward Island, and is recognized as one of North America’s best golf courses.
To view this spectacular Canadian facility, a video tour is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lOE-w-5tLY
Funniest golf review site ever. You should come up with a yearly gilagolf ranking and give out some gilagolf awards. Divot of the year, OB of the year, etc.
Cheers. Keep up the good work.
Really like your style . I’m sure that some of the senior golfers reading my site and looking for some good golf courses to play on while on vacation in Malaysia can find some real benefit in what your advising them. Keep up the great work and keep it fun
wow! i must say, i accidentally bump into this great website while surfing golf related web.
You r really funny & i enjoy reading every piece of it!
I’m a beginner who don’t even know how to differentiate between the clubs i have in my bag…
This site definitely bring me closer to knowing golf….I used to think golf is a hobby for those rich & famous guy u see on TV, but here i found out that golf can be very down to earth & fun even for the guy next door!
I’m impressed, but i’m lost in this new frontier, & hopefully can learn from gigagolf kaki, maybe join u guys for a game sometime!
Cheers!
Robin: Welcome to the prison called golf. It’s pretty addictive, but am sure you’re gonna enjoy it. Most of the time, you’ll be suffering, so I’ll be honest with you but you won’t be alone.
How do you differentiate between clubs? Well, the number helps, but I guess you’re talking about distance: only cure is really to head to the range and bash golf balls!
Similar to robin, i accidentally bumped into ur site while looking for a map to KRTU.
Its 1 am and I am dead tired and with a golf game tomorrow, it took all my willpower to drag myself off the bed to browse for the map to KRTU.
Needless to say, ur site is really wonderful. Don’t mind waking up to read a few more reviews on other courses.
Its kind of straight from the gut, no holds barred type of comments which makes them both refreshing and informative (for “hackers” as u so called them).
Hope all is well with you and best of health…
cheers
Hey,
Came across this site by referral from a golf forum. Great site. I am actually from Australia but do travel to Malaysia regularly due to having family there.
During my time in KL, I try to fit in a few rounds of golf. This is a great site which gives me reviews on some of the courses before I go for a hit. Good job!
hey there…wondering if you played awana? thinking of heading there…so was looking at the courses that you reviewed and was rather surprise that awana wasnt one of them…any particular reason why?
I never got a shot at Awana. It came up in AGN but by then, my golf freedom was coming to a close
. Definitely will try it again once my golf life gets resurrected!! Maybe during puasa month, got more free time….
Down to earth, honest reviews by hackers, for hackers… I like it! You’re in my bookmark.
Hi, I enjoyed and appreciated your info very much to serch golf course. and do you also have any info for
Kuala Kubu Bahru Golf & Country Club ??
Anyway thank you very much!
Meet new golf friends on http://www.GolfKonnect.com. It’s Free to join..
Hmmm. I played KKB a very very long time ago, but perhaps it’s due time to head back there.
A few years ago, i played at two good (so I thought) courses around KL.
They were Sungei Long (long, great fairways and greens) and Bukit Tinggi.
I don’t see them in your reviews.
Really like to hear about them, although i am no longer working in KL.
ch
Sungai Long is one of those clubs we’d love to hack if someone brought us in! Bukit Tinggi has been reviewed, it’s down in the WOTM category. It improved a little after we reviewed it, but now I heard has again gone down the toilet since they didn’t renew the maintenance contract.
will be in Shah Alam for 6 months to assist a local company in Jan 12, but looking to get some golf in. Bukit Kemuning looks decent and with getting a premier card to keep the cost down. Is their any local societies to join to get a regular round. Cheers
Hey guys,
Great website. My organization is planning to host a golf tournament to raise funds for charity and I was scouting for golf courses and reviews when i bumped into your site. Its a really great site. Very informative.
Though i tried searching for a review on Kota Permai Golf and Country Club but I couldnt find anything. I’ve been told that its on of the top golf clubs in Malaysia, which is why i’m surprised that I could not find any review about it here.
Any particular reason for not reviewing Kota Permai?
Hi Navin, the only particular reason we have is that I haven’t played on it yet. Actually I did, long time ago before this blog even got started. Till then, I’m still waiting for a kind soul to sponsor me to play, since we’re so cheapskate
However, we’re getting our act together to play there with the CIMB cards discounts, and we’re planning to play there one of these days soon. Stay tuned!
Datuk Hacker, Thank you for keeping up your site over the years. Your humor and honesty are appreciated! Not that I always agree; for instance I rather like Bukit Unggul. Or rather, I used to like it but my colleagues and I have a policy of not playing courses which have a forced-caddy rule. Maybe our Army of Hackers can start a letter-writing campaign to the various managers? Optional would be fine, but don’t saddle me with these useless idiots! Perhaps future reviews can include a mention of whether or not a course requires the caddy saddle. Also on the caddy news front, I posted an update on Bukit Beruntung. Not that any of us would be playing there anymore anyway…