Bandar Utama Golf Course

Introduction
After a long lay off, I finally dusted off the dirt from my clubs for a quick nine in Bandar Utama. It was a simple golf game, basically with a couple of beginners, and also to get the rust out of my system. And what better place than our old hunting ground, what we know as BU course, or BU9 or sometimes, in our best mood, that piece of cr** that disguises itself as a golf course. So on a cloudy Sunday morning, we teed up on a course we haven’t seen for more than a year.

DSC00319.jpg picture by gilagolf

Travel (2/5)
This is obviously a very contentious point, because if you’re from Penang or something, it’s absolutely pure insanity that you would want to drive down all the way to play on this course, as you will soon see. I mean, it’s like paying a billion dollars to buy a Preda, Louis Vitton or a Gutci handbag, and those are the correct spelling. Or a Rollex, Tag Higher or Ohmega wrist watch. In other words, absolutely pure insanity.

But you know, as mentioned before, the rating system is obviously very biased in terms of convenience to the one actually writing it, and for this particular person, a drive to Bandar Utama is a breeze.

It’s one of our courses that probably don’t require a map but we’re going to put it in anyway for the sake of looking professional.

bumap

OK, so take the sprint highway heading towards the Damansara Toll (for Pj folks, that’s the one that you hit when you want to go to the airport). Go up at the Sony flyover to get into Bandar Utama, and turn right at the lights. Go straight till you see Bandar Utama College on your left, and take that turning leading to the college. On the map, it’s called Persiaran Utama.

Keep going straight, go past a few bumps, ignore the first left and take the second left, despite warning signs of danger and death. It’s going to look as if you’re going into a mining site, or some kind of POW camp, but you will emerge and see a parking lot on your right and a small little hut that passes off at the club house. Remember what we said about telling a golf course from it’s club house. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the Bandar Utama Golf Course.

Price (2/5)
We forked out RM53 for 9 holes, which on a prime time like Sunday morning, is pretty decent, I guess. It gets down to about 40 plus during the afternoon. It’s of course a little premium for the convenience, but we need to temper that price with how the course is, and matching price for course, it gets a below par 2. I mean, think about it, if RM53 gets us 9, RM106 gets us 18, which is more than we pay to tee up at Kinrara on a Saturday morning utilizing our AGN membership. And you know sometimes you’re fat and you stand next to a fatter guy and everyone starts thinking you’re thin? This Bandar Utama course makes us think that when we die and go to heaven, Kinrara course will be waiting for us. We begin to yearn for the course which, as we have already reviewed, is a pretty much extended copy of a moderate to frustratingly crappy course as well.


First thoughts

Ok, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t even want to review this course in the first place, that’s why all the pictures are taken from my camera phone. It was until the second hole that I decided to review it and let you know what me and my buddies think.

First thoughts when you see the club house, especially on a weekend, is:

“Wah, so many people one ah?”

In fact, it often seems that the entire population of PJ has decided to gather on this tiny plot of land for the sole purpose of cangkuling the ground and making life a miserable, living hell for other jokers who have also gathered for the sole purpose of cangkuling and miserabling. It’s one big pile of mess, because of it’s convenience, every Tom, Dick and Sally, Aunties and construction workers are here to pitch their new found skill on this game of golf.

It’s generally a lose-lose situation here. Because as beginners, having a huge gallery looking at you is probably not the best way to get to your first tee. But you have to tee up and with sweaty palms, and knocking knees you stand over the ball which suddenly looks smaller than a plankton and you proceed to skim the ball 20 feet in front of you and embarrass your family name. This slows down the game, but there’s no way out of it, as you go on and cangkul onwards miserably. And this repeats itself as flood after flood of beginners pack the starting tee.

And as long as we are here, we’re all beginners, so there’s really no point in getting overly frustrated over the lack of skill displayed.

DSC00310.jpg picture by gilagolf

Service(1/5)
OK, the service sucked. Signing in is easy itself, but we had to wait additional 40 minutes because they ran out of buggy. I mean, ok, fine, I get it, your course is so popular than all your buggies are snapped up by 730. So, if you come at 8:30 am, you’re in deep crap because you don’t have buggy and you have to wait till at least 945 for the first flight to complete.

We thankfully came about 9:15 ish so it wasn’t too long before we haggled over a buggy and drove off to Tee 1. The buggies are new, which begs the question of “Who the heck is investing into this forsaken place anyways?”

On Tee 1, it gets worse. You will see a long line of buggies in front of you. And because these are typically beginners, no one has any idea of any ethics. There was a flight in front of us with 2 people. And in front of them, a flight with 2 people. And in front of them was a fourball.

What’s the rule here?

The two balls join together right? I mean, balls here mean the flights, because my statement there might get some of the more depraved readers chuckling. Two guys just say “Hi, can we join you” and make a fourball and everyone  gets moving along.

But due to the lack of governance on the course, and the obvious lack of any marshal whatsoever, all rules are thrown out the window. The two marsupials in front of us absolutely did everything in their power to avoid eye contact with us, who threw them dirty looks and when one of us said aloud: “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if it was all fourball instead of two balls, right?” they pretended they were Micronesians who didn’t speak a word of English.

I mean, come on, would it kill you to say hi and join the darn flight in front? Would it kill you to actually learn a little about golf ethics? Would it really kill you if for once in your life, you become a little more considerate and stop making life a miserable, living hell for the rest of the PJ population waiting for you to get out of the way?

DSC00303.jpg picture by gilagolf

Fairways (0/5)
From here on, be prepared for a free fall down hill. With that amount of golf newbies on a course with 9 holes, there is absolutely no way that the fairways can even resemble anything close to a golf turf. Most of the time you’ll find your ball either stuck in mud or simply sitting on a patch of sand. In fact, we recommend you steal a driving range turf and just carry it around with you and use it, because with the ground blasted to bits by relentless golf clubs coming too steep, it resembles Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Also, aside from hole 1,3 and 5, the rest of the fairways are forbiddingly narrow. It’s not due to the intelligence of the designer, but rather the limitation of the land. Like its big brothers Seri Selangor and Monterez, BU Course is another reason why so many beginners give up the game in the first place, after losing 60 balls into oblivion.

DSC00315.jpg picture by gilagolf

Greens(1/5)
The greens fare slightly better, but it’s not to say it’s good. It’s just better than the fairways. The greens are not pressed or maintained, so it’s just there, with different speeds, mainly excruciatingly slow and unpredictable. There are a few undulations or interesting greens like the massive one at the par 5 third. Or it can resemble a temporary green like the one on the 4th. Needless to say, I have never seen a green mower in my life in BU course, so I am guessing that they train gerbils to nibble away and trim the greens to its current, low grade condition.

DSC00313.jpg picture by gilagolf

Rough(-1/5)
I can only post up these pictures of horror for your viewing.

DSC00305.jpg picture by gilagolf

The problem with BU is that it seems to be in construction all the time. If it’s not one condo, it’s another office block. It generates a foul stench, especially at the unplayable second. And come on, look at this piece of crap. You’re kidding me.

It gets better as you ‘cross over’ to the 4th (literally, you need to cross over the road), but the same soggy ground is prevalent. Your ball goes into the rough, it’s bye bye. It’s either plugged or stolen by those darn maintenance gerbils.

DSC00302.jpg picture by gilagolf

Aesthetics(2/5)
Why do we give this a 2, despite everything points to a -10?

To be fair, if you can get past the second hole, BU course can pass off as an acceptable looker. The same way as how any normal human with 2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose and a mouth will generally not draw gasps of disgust, BU course is typically a narrow, constipated, forest surrounding course, with very typical scenes. The ugliness is in the construction around it.

To be fair, they’ve made some changes in terms of beautifying the place, by placing proper embankment on the par 5 3rd. They also seem to be investing to build a community center with swimming pool at the side of hole 1. Without a side net however and one of our group promptly shanked his second shot into the currently unoccupied pool.

And to be also fair, the par 5 3rd is quite a good challenge. A good drive puts you about 180 from the green but you need to float up a 3 wood over water to an almost inaccessible green with water in front, right and back. A small bailout is to the left but pull it, it lands into water.

The par 5 sixth is also reachable in 2. It’s a curious hole with a cliff on the left for your wayward balls to rebound from into the fairway. In fact, in our flight, two guys careened their balls from the walls safely onto the fairway. Mine also pulled but landed inside a bush instead. Bollocks!

DSC00317.jpg picture by gilagolf

Of course, the signature is the par 3 seventh. It’s an extremely elevated tee box looking over the next two holes. It’s quite enjoyable but serious hard work in gauging the distance and keeping your ball from yanking left to OB. It’s also OB right, with a pond in front, and a steep drop off to the back.

A lot of people overshoot the green because it states like 165m or something. In fact, go for your 150m club, like your 7 and you’ll get it on safely. This is pretty much the saving grace of the entire course. Feel free to pile in 3-4 balls to the green while you’re here, because after this, it’s going through the slog again.

DSC00323.jpg picture by gilagolf

Fun Factor(1/5)
Fun? Nobody has fun in Bandar Utama Course. Due to its constipated heritage, it’s sheer torture to go through it and also to watch those marsupials in front of you go through it because they take so long to look for their darn ball. In fact, the flight in front of us actually went into the construction site searching for balls. I mean, are your balls studded with Tiffany diamond rings or something? Golf balls, I mean.

This course also carries the distinction of a 9 hole course that takes an 18 hole duration to play. We teed up about 9:45 and finished almost at 12:30 pm. It took us an hour plus to just slog through the first three holes. They should advertise it: “Make your 9 holes feel like 18 holes!” Half the time you will spend waiting, ball juggling, playing chor tai tee, watching movie on your ipod video or generally wondering how you could have spent your morning sleeping instead of standing in a stinking golf course waiting for the fellas in front of you to hit their diamond studded balls.

In our group the two beginners had their share of joy when one hit the flag pole to get a par and the other bombed a 25 footer through sheer luck to get his birdie on the par 4 eight. He leapt up and screamed in joy, as if he scored the winning goal in the world cup, and finally started smiling, after shooting about 110 on the first six holes.

DSC00308.jpg picture by gilagolf

Conclusion
Despite of it being graded a complete waste of time and money, it escapes the dreaded AAC (Absolutely Astoundingly Crap) grading due to its location. Like it or not, people and us included will probably return now and then to play it because of its convenience and the fact that it’s the course that all beginners will start with. It sucks, but that’s life right. You most likely will enjoy it as much as having your wisdom tooth extracted with a BOSCH drill, but if you last to the par 3 seventh, then at least you can have some fun there.

But once you are a decent player, or once you record your first par and birdie, make arrangements to flee the place. Consider yourself graduated and look forward to a lifelong struggle with more worthwhile courses like Kinrara or Bangi or Seri Selangor.

DSC00307.jpg picture by gilagolf

The good: Location, location, location. Also par 3 seventh signature hole is worth playing a few times; the de facto beginner’s course, so most people will forgive you for hacking the ground to death and playing like a complete nut.

The bad: Boy, there’s a lot. Wait time is crazy; no governance on course; no golf ethics; stinking fairways; absolutely awful rough; and be prepared to lose a dozen balls or so, so please take all the old driving range balls and use them, and keep your diamond studded balls at home.

The skinny: 10 of 40 divots (25%). If you just started golf, you can’t escape this. It’s like ragging, a rude welcome to the game of golf. You won’t enjoy it but you will need to go through it and get stronger as you level up, like World of Warcraft. Once graduated, don’t look back to this heinous piece of course ever again…unless you need to accompany other beginners.

LPGA: Hot or Not

OK. Got some feedback and some good ideas. Rahim, one of the GilaReaders commented that:

“Your post doesn’t touch on golfers in skirt!..LPGA have plenty of them..your funny words on golf make this blog lively and I’am sure you have something darnt and sweet things to say!”

I do appreciate the comments, especially its a ‘down time’ for gilagolf now (i.e minimum golf, maximum work).

So, this week marks a milestone in golf: Annika Sorenstam, probably the greatest of all time in LPGA, will play her last tournament, and in with all due respect to Gilagolfers everywhere, she can still very likely beat all of us with her left hand tied behind her back, hopping on one leg, eating a beefburger and putting with her pinky finger.

Yep. She’s that good.

But I won’t write about her, since there are far better blogs out there that covers all these respectable things about golf. Instead, here’s a poll on the top 20 LPGA hottest girls.

Yes, you can definitely see this logical line of reasoning. Annika retiring? Let’s have a hot girl poll!

Just click on the LPGA gal you think is Hot!

Let us know who’s supposed to be here, and who is NOT supposed to be here!!


Morgan Pressel

The Big Wiesy

Natalie Gulbis

Christina Kim

Christina Kim (Unbelievably thinner version!)

Paula Creamer

Anna Rawson

Momko Ueda

Erica Blasberg

Brittany L

Grace Park

Annika

Stacy P

Suzann Pettersen

Nicole Perrot

Mi Hyun Kim

Lorena Ochoa

Ai Miyazato

Carin Koch

Christie Kerr

The Absence of Golf

I’ve had some questions concerning what the heck happened to Gilagolf blog of late. No, we have not closed down, but it has been pretty drying lately in terms of golf…we’ve been hacking the same old courses over and over. Someone suggested that we should review the reviews, and see if there are any improvements. It’s a great idea, but we’ve so darn lazy that I doubt we’re interested in reviewing our reviews unless the course really really pissed us off (cue in UPM and the stupid directionless signs).

However! I’m also settling down in my new job so updates on golf courses will be less, as I have to take a break a little, but be assured that I will blog as much as possible  on all things pertaining to golf, never fear! So, Gilagolf will be back!!

Enter the Draigon

It’s a nice title isn’t it? It’s like PaDraig, you know, as in Draig-on?

Ok, whatever.

Paddy has officially become our favourite Gilagolf golfer. He succeeded in defeating Sergio twice in the Majors, and this time, it was eerily familiar to the one he won at Carnoustie.

1. He came from the back on both occasions.

2. He defeated our most unpopular golfer, Garcia, on both occasions.

3. Garcia’s lip out on the par 3 17th was exactly the same as his lip out on the 18th in Carnoustie…he pulled it and the ball touched the left lip and curled out.

4. Paddy’s 18th hole was a hack, just like Carnoustie 18th hole last year.

5. Paddy’s 18th hole par save was exactly like Tiger’s 18th hole birdie attempt to send the US Open to playoff, both lying on the rough at the same distance and both having similar putts.

6. Garcia hit his approach on the 16th into the drink, just like Padraig hit his into the Burn in Carnoustie.

Now, Paddy only has to prove that he can win more majors with Tiger in the field.

Oh, here’s a great title if Paddy and Tiger ever gets paired up on the last day of majors:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Draigon

Good, eh?

The PGA Championship Prediction

OK, here we are, the final round and a half for the final major of the year.

Rain washed out round 3 but even as I write this, round 4 is already underway and it looks to be the most exciting finish to a major this year (thanks to the disappearance of a guy called Tiger). By exciting, I mean in relative terms to the other events since our friend disappeared…in fact, all the other PGA events put together since then had drawn in crowds as large as the crowds watching houseflies mate in summer. That’s about 2 people in total.

Golf has become so boring since then, that anything is considered exciting, and so the Gilagolf Prediction Engine (Which so far has scored a perfect 0 out of 3 predictions this year) has the PGA Championship predicted!

1.  Sergio Garcia

Unfortunately, our stupid prediction engine came up with the name of our most hated golfer (we hate him primarily because he is young, cocky and darn good, very much like us, except we are 2 out of 3 on those points, figure out which). Yep, this year is the year of the Matadors. Spain won the Euro Championship in football, a muscular upstart named Nadal dethrone FedEx from number 1 in the tennis world, it’s time Mr Sergio remove the Best Player without Major tag.

But we’re rejecting this prediction. We are going with our gut feeling. Sergio WILL NOT WIN this major.

2. Ben Curtis

Ben Curtis is actually not in the second worst category related to majors (the first being the one named above) — Player with Major but wished he had never won it, since he suck. Players include Shaun Micheel, Ian Baker Finch, Rich Beem, Todd Hamilton, Michael Campbell. Ben actually is a proven winner on tour with 3 wins. I’m sure he felt embarassed about winning the British Open in 2003, since a guy named Tomas Bjorn literally handed him the claret jug. Will he become a proper winner this time? Sorry, no. He has the lead but he’ll lose it.

3. Henrik Stenson

As we mentioned, we like him because he has a lady caddie. What kind of dude would be able to convince a girl to lug his big bag and walk several miles with him for 5 days? Unfortunately, he’s known to blow up both in his temperament and game and we’ve stopped expecting him to do good things for us.

4. Charlie Wi

We just like his name. It sounds so happy. He reminds us of another Wi(e) who is more famous and probably drives longer than him. Still, he’s asian, and the PGA Championship is filled with first time surprise winners. But we predict he will purposely lose this one even if he’s in position to win it, or he will be forever villified as the Korean who took away KJ Choi’s rightful mantle as the first Korean and Asian to win a major. He can’t afford that. He will be forced into a labour camp.

5. Padraig Harrington

Come on, we like Paddy, but one major is enough! Who do you think you are–Tiger?

6. Jeev Milkha Singh

See number 4, and the reason why he won’t win. He’s a great guy though. We saw him in real life and he was very polite to sign autographs.

7. Phil Mickleson

Will Phil finally come through and prove he’s a great player? We somehow think his smile is a bit fake sometimes, but hey, so does Vijay Singh, right? He hasn’t been playing all too great in this competition, so we’re going to pass…he doesn’t have the competitive drive to up his game, somehow.

8. Andreas Romero

He shot 65 in the third round. This guy is a monster. And we like him because he’s like the anthithesis of Sergio. He’s young, darn good and can’t speak English very well, so he’s exactly like us, except we’re 2 out of 3 on those points, go figure. He’s pretty far back but because we’re going to refuse to take GPE’s prediction, we’re going to root for Romero. GO ROMERO!! BEAT SERGIO!!

Paddy Harry the Open Champ

Boy, what a british open.

Sure, our prediction sucked again as the horse we bet on bombed spectacularly (KJ scored 40 on the front and shot an 8 on the last!!), and none of the dark horse even had a shot at it–Ross Fisher also shot 8 on the last enroute to a 79, AK shot 3 bogeys in the last 3 holes to come in for 40, and +12, and the only guy who had a shot as predicted was Henrik Stenson at +9 but he was 6 strokes off the lead.

You’ve got to hand it to KJ though. If any of us played like that, we would have been chewing the rubber off our club’s grip. I’ve never seen that dude lose his temper, the way Ernie did on the 2nd day when he tomahawked his putter after missing the putt on 18th.

So did Norman bombed as predicted? I wished he played better, it would have been a heck of a story if the shark won it. But no, he started with 3 bogeys on a trot and faded.

And the anonymous Wakefield shot 43 on the back 9 in a game very reminiscent of ours.

At the end, we’re quite happy with the result as Paddy has always been a favourite. But more importantly David Duval, Gilagolf’s most favourite, finished better than Sergio Garcia, Gilagolf’s least favourite.

A great Tiger-less Major!!

The British Open

Once again, we head to the final day of a major championship, one that has been slightly more interesting than expected. Without Tiger, it’s like throwing a 21st birthday party and only inviting your grandmother’s friends over and watch reruns of Gone With the Wind, which is pretty apt, because that’s exactly what we should be calling this British Open in Royal Birkdale, England.

The first round and third round were absolutely horrific for the golfers, and one that we took special interest in was our all time favourite man in shades: Mr David Duval. He played spectacular for two rounds and as we eagerly waited for his tee off for the third round, he rewarded us with a triple bogey and a downward spiral more painful to watch than removing your toenails with a rusted plier. He was already like +10 before the turn and at that time, all our hopes of him winning the Open had been dashed. Game over, Mr Duval, we’ll have to wait another day for a possible fairytale. Like Tiger, I felt that he jinxed himself after the round 2 in his interview, saying that he is coming to greatness.

You know what that means. Falling flat back onto earth in the most humiliating fashion possible to mankind.

OK, the Gilagolf Prediction Engine has been tweaked and here are the nominees to lift the Claret Jug!

1. Greg Norman

It would be a fairytale but sorry no. We all recall 1996 Masters when Greg imploded in one of golf’s greatest meltdowns in history. He’s going to face it once again (failure, but not the meltdown), but it will be a close call. He won’t implode, but look to see his 2 stroke lead evaporate by the turn and then it’s a free for all. Which comes to blows between:

2. Paddy Harrington

We all like Paddy. Especially the way he walks. If you noticed the way he walks, he strides with complete expression across the fairways. It’s like Bozo the Clown with the size 20 shoes. His gait is definitely very advantageous especially with 50 KM winds buffeting the smaller guys around. Tim Clark has to tie a chainball to his feet to keep him from flying off into the ocean. Will Paddy repeat? No, he won’t. He’ll be crashing in the back 9.

3. KJ Choi

The first asian to win a major? I would love to live to see the day, but it is a possibility. KJ has played 3 days of pretty fantastic golf, with the expression of a piece of brick. He has shown that he has what it takes to win tournaments and in line with so many first time major winners grabbing the Claret Jug, GPE is highy biased to KJ. Also, GPE is automatically skewed to any Asians with any chance to win. And we’re talking about Asian Asians, not the ones who are Asians but has the American flag next to their names, although we think AK is cool and he’s very good…but KJ CHOI YOU ARE THE BRITISH OPEN CHAMP!!!! GO KJ!!!!!!

4. Simon Wakefield

There is no data for this person in GPE. We will just assume he will fizzle out under the intense scrutiny that comes from playing the last few groups.

Dark Horses

Anthony Kim — Told ya we liked AK. He is confident enough not to meltdown, but his game might not be complete enough to negotiate the winds. But his belt buckle is big, so that will work for him.

Ross Fisher — This dude blew the field in The European Open a couple of weeks back by 7 shots. SEVEN!

Henrik Stenson — He’s always a dangerous guy. Plus, he has a woman caddie, Fanny, which we think is quite cool. How often do you get a woman to lug a bag for you for nearly 5 miles a day? He must have some special persuasive powers no one else has.

A Rich Man's Game

I’m a golf evangelist.

As in, I’m always telling people it’s a great game.

Like most religion (and golf is NOT, I am just making an analogy), there’s always resistance and in golf, the biggest challenge is to get people to start the game. Once they are hooked, they won’t stop. The all time favourite resistant response is:

“It’s a rich man game la….”

It’s a known fact that golf retailers markup about 30%-40%, so for a single club, they are probably making a profit of about 300 bucks or so. But it’s not really the retailer’s fault because they need to make a profit and the manufacturers are already killing them with the increasing wholesale prices. Think about it. 99% of the clubs are made in China, in some sweat houses that pays workers like USD1 per day. You’d think the cost of making clubs is going lower and lower and lower.

You are right. So why the heck is the club’s prices soaring? The ridiculous CGB Max from Taylormade is at 2200RM. Who are they trying to sucker?! (If you bought it, much apologies, nothing personal).

Manufacturers are raising the prices not because there’s like a bunch of technology involved or the clubs are getting more complicated. They are raising prices to cover for the increase in their advertising and sponsorship for the pros. How much does Nike have to cough up for Tiger? How much Callaway does for Ernie and Phil? They lower costs, jack up prices to retailers and customers suffer with pricings like RM1500 per driver.

Sure, you say, nowadays, drivers are full of technology. No, seriously, do you think a couple of screws at the back of the club is gonna make much difference to the average hacker? It might, but we’re still gonna suck regardless. Trust me. If you bought a new driver for about RM2200 and you immediately shoot 10 strokes lower, let me know. More likely, we’ll hover around the same score, unless we change our swings. And how different can the new burner be, compared to the old one, except the aesthetics? And is there a whole lot of difference between the Hi Bore XLS and the Hi Bore XL? In fact, I hit best with the Hi Bore original, compared to the other more ‘high tech’ drivers.

No, golf is a rich man’s game only if you want it to be.

Most of us have a lot more other things to do than to just play golf, unfortunately. We have loans to pay, and a life to run, which cost money, unless we decide to live in a cave and eat guano. So 99% of people will look at the price first before starting off and go, “Wah, so expensive one ah….”

There are 2 ways out of this.

1) Wait for retail sale and grab the best pricing possible. This is a good idea actually and later, I’ll show you where there are pretty good deals for new clubs (probably older models but still, new). The problem with this is that when you want to get it, it’s no longer there, because of the kiasu-ness of malaysians. Or even after the sale, it’s still outside of your reach.

2) Second hand clubs. This is the idea I support, because when it comes to golf, I am a cheapskate. Technology is improving at such a rapid pace that it’s now common for manufacturers to release 2-3 models in a season, rendering last season’s clubs obsolete. Of course, you need to be extra careful buying second hand clubs, and you need to make sure they aren’t hacked to death, or knock offs. I’ll write another post on this later.

In conclusion, golf is actually a very affordable game. You should get a decent set of clubs you can play with for some time, that means forget about those all in one sets for RM500, RM600. They suck. I don’t care if they are from Mizuno, Maruman or whatever. If you end up loving the game, you’ll buy another set almost immediately. If you end up hating the game, you can’t even sell the set to a hobo.

A fictional set that costs RM1400:

Ping Eye 2 irons 3i – SW – RM500

Adams Insight Driver – RM390

Cobra 3 Wood – RM180

TaylorMade Rescue Mid – RM200

Cobra IM-02 Putter – RM130

You can even go cheaper if you want, by taking a lousy putter, or removing the 3 wood, but with a set like this, you can probably use this for many years to come. So think before you pop up RM1500 for the new driver that actually costs only a fraction of the price you paid.

Good Deals Around Town
Here are some good deals around town:

1) [MST] TM Burner (OLD)RM888

2) [MST] Nike Sumo (Old) RM590 (R) – RM690 (S)

3) [RGT] Srixon w-506RM800

4) [Isetan KLCC] Cobra F Speed RM590

5) [Isetan KLCC] Nike Sumo Square (Old) RM750

These are the best ones I’ve found so far. MST also offers the new Callaway Hyper X for RM1050.

Also, Isetan KLCC is selling used Never Compromise Voodoo Daddy for about RM360 (after 20%). I am a HUGE Never Compromise fan, and I have exactly the same putter selling for RM250. And mine is better conditioned. Mine doesn’t have a headcover, but it still doesn’t justify for the RM100 difference. Hence, despite their ‘sale’, retailers still need to go lower!!

Isetan KLCC

Gilagolf

There used to be better deals for Hi Bore XL at RM700, TM R7 Draw at RM700 and Callaway X460 at RM700 (giving you an idea of the markup retailers get), but I can no longer get those. I doubt anyone can get those deals anymore. I’ll post up more once I find some good deals around town.

Happy Hacking!

Templer Park Country Club

Introduction

I’ve waited quite a long time to play at Templer Park, and thinking that my game was coming around after an 83 at Bangi, I was pretty confident of doing well. See, Templer Park is a player’s course. So if you do well there, you know you’re getting somewhere in your game. Plus, it’s quite a premier course as well, and after seeing pictures of that mountain thingy (it’s called Takun Mountain, though it’s really theoretically a limestone rock), it’s a must play course for Gilagolf, up there with Clearwater, Saujana, Palm and Datai.

Travel (3/5)

As a kid, I recall traveling for hours to get to Templer’s Park. It used to be so darn far! Now with the wonderful advent of modern roads, pristine Malaysian forests are plowed down so we can get from the city to the remaining pristine forests in shorter time. The easiest way is from PJ, head over to Kepong. After the LDP toll, stay right and go up the flyover and you’ll be heading towards Batu Caves. Look for signs for Ipoh where you’ll need to turn off. At the roundabout, take a left and you’ll be on the old Ipoh road. From there, it’s 21 KM down a scenic drive and you need to make a U turn and Templer’s Park Golf is on your left. You’ll come to a T junction and you’ll see Templer and Perangsang, i.e Heaven and Hell. Guess which one to take?

The only disadvantage is that it gets very jam during rush hour. The entire area is clogged up for some reason, and though it’s accessible, you need to leave early to get there in time. Oh yeah, Templer Park is very anal about their tee time. You miss it, it’s too bad for you. You’ll get bumped down the food chain.

Price (2/5)

The cheapest way to play at Templer is to purchase the Top Premier book for about RM160. It has 2-3 vouchers for Templer park, and you end up paying about 50 bucks or something to play. Else, if you’re a walkin, you’ll be spitted upon and charged 135RM for a weekday. Seriously, get the Top Premier book.

Now, I understand if it’s RM135 on a weekday. I get it. It’s a top course. It has many Japanese speaking people there. It has this huge hill that looks like the crystal rock I have on my office table. I get it. What I don’t get is this: WHY ARE YOU CHARGING US NORMAL PRICE WHEN YOUR COURSE IS OBVIOUSLY NOT PLAYING NORMAL??

It gets a 2, and you’ll see later what we’re so pissed off about.

First thoughts

Class. Those were my thoughts. I liked the changing room. You take off your shoes. Very Japanese. I liked the F&B area, there’s a wide garden and the huge lime rock looks over you. And the course looks fascinating. Everything here reeks of class…and I think for a change from all the other golf clubs, it really is cool. And also, one of the Gilalogy is this: If there’s a course that is next door or nearby, almost always your course will be extra good, if it’s the better one. Look at Kota Permai. It overshadows Bukit Kemuning. Palm Garden overshadows UPM. Across the road here is Perangsang. I’ve never played there, but I heard it’s a poor man’s Templer. So, we’ll give it a miss for now.

Service (4/5)

The moment you get down from your car, you’ll be greeted by eager caddies. I like the service for the little things they do. Like having a specially modified buggy to take the golf sets without piling them lock stock and barrel into a normal buggy like the stupid Bukit Kemuning and Tiara Melaka. It’s very considerate of them. The check in was quick and painless, the locker room clean, and the buggy waiting area very orderly. The caddie needed some work, because she kept giving me the wrong yardage and she couldn’t find my ball on the third hole when I clocked up a triple, but overall, very good service.

Fairways (2/5)

Ok, now you will see why we’re so pissed.

The first 3 fairways were unplayable. That’s right. I mean this wasn’t just a part of it that was being maintained. They were ripping up the entire course! I see chunks of dirt and carpets of grass littering the whole course like gigantic cow dung. I see casual water around the first fairway, I see my ball resting a huge clump of dirt and I can’t even drop, since, the whole fairway was stuffed up. Holes that you could sprain your ankles in. For a while, I wanted to march back up to the nice registration lady who gave me an A Class service and shout, “I PAID RM135 FOR THIS?!”

Of course, in a civilized world, that would be unacceptable, so we bit the bullet, struggled through the first few holes.

After the 3rd hole, the fairways finally reverted back to normal condition, which was pretty good. But it doesn’t save it. You charge me RM135 to essentially play 16 holes since the 2nd hole was a par 3.

Greens (4/5)

Thank God they weren’t messing around with greens as well. Templer green was almost perfect. We were all a little spoilt after Beringin, but it held up to the rain very well. One thing about Templer is that the greens are huge. I don’t know if it’s me, but regulation doesn’t mean a thing. I thought my putting was pretty ok, but I struggled like a monkey getting the speed right. At the par 5 12th, I made a complete fool of myself, where putting off the front, I putted off it, and three putted back in. It was just one of those days. I think we were all a little upset over the condition of the fairways, since all of us struggled the first few holes.

Rough (3/5)

The rough here punishes us in a way that Clearwater does. Because Templer is deceivingly long (at 6150m, it’s medium but for some reason, it plays almost 300m longer), the rough catches your ball and turns your par 4s to par5s and your par5s to God knows what. I was actually driving very well—I avoided the dreaded duck hook, my crapshot, and this time, I was pushing the ball right (which was an improvement to me, trust me). Several times I landed into trouble with the ample water, but the first 9 was supposed to be easier, and I scored a massive 49 on it. Most of this was because of the bunkers.

There is a LOT OF BUNKERS. Can’t say anything anymore. It severely degrades your game when you hit a bunker, hit out and hitting 3 into the green from 140 – 150 meters and hope it’s close for par or at least bogey. Make a mistake and hit one in the bunker again, you’ll likely look at some inflated scoring.

Aesthetics (5/5)

The selling point is always the aesthetics of Templer. With that gigantic crystal rock overlooking everything, every hole plays to its shadows. It’s quite imposing, and we played the first nine under clear skies, but the weather made a U turn and down came the rain again, spoiling another good game.

When the rain dissipated, the course took on an even more surreal look; with low hanging clouds hugging the Takun Mountain, and drifting around the course. Templer is quite a beauty, every hole bringing in a different look. The par 4 3rd plays flat as flat can be; yet the imposing 15th par 5 is framed by jungle on both sides and takes a huge dive down into the green; cascading down like a lush, green waterfall. The snarling 169m par 3 8th requires a deadly carry over water, and bunker. The magnificent par 4 12th takes a risky path over jungle down to a narrow strip of fairway. The beautiful par 3 16th, a elevated tee shot to a green peeking over a brook, that has a stone bridge across it, a’la Hogan Bridge in Augusta. The par 4 17th, at 425 is highly impressive, and with a good drive and a hybrid, I only managed to kiss the front lip of the humongous green.

And of course, the signature ending hole, the 18th. The mountain looked down at us, frowning at our antics as we smashed 3 balls each to see if we can get it up to the upper tiered fairway, across the lake. The carry over water was about 210 meters or so, and with 3 balls, I managed to cross but couldn’t get it to the upper tier, settling at a small landing area about 90 meters from the hole. Only one of us, with a massive drive managed to reach the top tier. He skulled his approach and settled for a bogey while I parred it, and brought back at least a good memory of my otherwise forgettable game.

Fun Factor (4/5)

It’s not often you can say you had a lot of fun when you stumble to a 94. I actually played better than I scored, for once. And strangely played better at the harder 9 coming in. Except for the first hole, I didn’t descend into my patented crapshot, the low duck hook that veers right to left about 100 meters down the other fairway or right into OB. Of course, I went to the other extreme, the big push to the right, which caused my triple bogey on the 3rd by blasting it over the fence into oblivion. Two holes later, I pushed my shot into the lake, hit my 3rd into the rough, lost it (this is where I was a little annoyed with the caddie), chipped illegally my 6th and carded my second triple. I had 2 doubles on both sides of the nines, but I actually played a lot better after the downpour except for the stupid shot at 16th where I duffed it into the drink.

There are a couple of things you need to be careful of:

1) The distance markers suck. Really, they do. They actually measure only to the front of the green, usually where the deep bunkers lie in wait. In the cart, there is a crude drawing (I wished I photographed it!) of the pin positions of the day and additional yardage calculation. Why they do this, only heaven knows. It’s not as if we are smart enough to keep referring back to the drawing. We usually just get down from the buggy, walk and hit, and walk again. Which brings me to my second point:

2) The caddies aren’t superb either. Actually we only had one, and she wasn’t great. She kept giving us yardages that were shorter. She claims she’s calculating in meters and telling us to the middle of the flag but she’s lying. I doubt she can calculate yards to meters on the fly. I bet she’s simply subtracting 30 away, because Templer’s average yards per hole is 375, which is about 343, so minus 30 right. Now if it’s 100 yards, she’ll say its 70 meters. But it actually is 91.44 meters! CRAPSHOOT! So lots of the high score came not from lousy shots but from shots that were short. And in Templer, short means in the drink or in the bunker. Beware of the converting caddie. Just tell her to give you in yards and you make your own judgement.

3) Your buggy can sit 4 people! It’s crazy cool! Of course it’s more difficult to control, but hey, it’s quite a good invention. Drive with care….

4) Templer Park’s notorious for having ghost stories. One of it was that on the backswing, you’ll see your caddie at the corner of your eye behind you, but when you’ve hit it, she’s in front of you. Another one is that the ghost will applaud and say “Good Shot!” in one of the par 3s. Another one is that they will see an extra ball on the green. Another one is that when your ball goes into the jungle, it will be thrown out again. I like the last ghost best, but I didn’t see any of it, so I’ll just assume as I always do, that ghosts are a bunch of bollocks. Here’s what I got from a forum:

Prisoners were executed and buried here during the 2nd. world war by the Japanese army. Coincidentally this golf course was the first to introduce night golfing. But night golfing stopped after a short while.”

Conclusion

Except for the first three holes, the experience of Templer Park was really good. First, you’ll need an A game here. OB doesn’t often come in play but the bunkers really kill you. They are littered everywhere! For a course that’s not too far out of the way, its striking beauty will definitely leave an impression on you. The holes are championship material, the course well designed, and the greens very well maintained. If they fix their fairways, this will be an A-list course for sure.

The good: Decent travel time; superb scenery; greens are almost immaculate; tough, challenging rough forces you to keep the ball in the short stuff; every hole has distinct personality; 4 seater buggy is a cool idea.

The bad: The price! With lousy fairways, they should be decent enough to slash it for us; distance hard to gauge; caddie is below average, yet have to tip her; tougher back 9 for short hitters; ghosts don’t throw the ball out; monkeys will attack your buggy (serious this one).

The skinny: 27 of 40 divots (67.5%). It’s not the best we’ve played but for the view, it’s definitely worth braving the jam and ghosts to get there. If you do well here, you’ll probably do well in most courses in Malaysia. A definite go for us.

Templer Park Scorecard

Templer Park Information

Address:

Templer Park Country Club

KM21, Jalan Rawang, Rawang

48000 Kuala Lumpur,

Selangor, Malaysia

Contact: +603-60919111

Fax: +603-60919807

Email: many_sp@tpcc.com.my

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

SSG Beringin Golf Club

Introduction

You know the school nerd that suddenly gets hot once she gets past the teenage years? Well, we’ve been hearing a lot about Beringin for some time. Now, I have never played there before but I recall one day, early in my golf career, when I was cangkul-ling the ground at Bukit Beruntung, I complained out loud to my brother: “We traveled all the way for this??” Because, at that time, Beruntung was crap. I don’t know how it is now, but it used to be the entire fairway was like a giant bunker. Not only for one hole. But for 18 bloody holes!

My brother responded, “You should be glad you’re not at Lembah Beringin, it’s even worse!”

And from there on, Lembah Beringin has become synonymous to crap, lousy, piece of stool, mother of all crappy courses, a gigantic piece of dung…you get the idea. It seems awfully unfair to rate it like that before we even see it, but you know, I have a high regard for my brother’s advice. And anything worse than Beruntung has gotta be something beyond our wildest nightmare.

Recently we keep hearing how Lembah Beringin has changed, due to Saujana taking over. Now, Saujana are the geniuses who gave us Impiana and of course Saujana course. Golfers who went to Beringin, came back with wonderful tales of a glorious change, of a magnificent course worthy to be a championship course. It wasn’t just a name change—ditching the unpronounceable-to-foreigners ‘Lembah’ was a good idea. It removed any obvious name jokes golfers are so notorious for: like Lembik Beringin, (Weakling) Lembu Beringin (Cow), Lemas Beringin (Drowning), Lebam Beringin (Bruising). Golfers who crack such stupid jokes and laugh at it should be shot on sight with a 12 gauge shotgun, and remains fed to hyenas.

Anyway, due to such exciting news of the newly called SSG Beringin, we packed up into a car and headed up north to this mythical course.

Travel (3/5)

We absolutely hate traveling to the northern course (i.e north of Klang Valley). Where as you see the southern courses are all closely clustered (Bangi, Kajang, Palm Garden, UPM, Impiana etc), the northern courses always feels as if you need to pack your passport. Anything after Rawang, and we’re hitting the outer reaches of space. But we’ll try to be fair and give more points to courses that are easily accessible, even if they are located in Timbuktu. To get to Beringin (we will just call the darn course SSG now, shall we?), it’s easy, head to the NKVE (you know how to get there don’t you?), easiest from the Damansara Toll, and head to Ipoh/Rawang. You will travel a long, long time, past Rawang, past Bukit Beruntung and finally arrive at the Lembah Beringin Exit. Take that and ta-da! The course is right next to the turn off. It’s that easy. In fact, it’s so easy, it doesn’t even need a map. If you can’t find it, you don’t deserve to be called a fully functional seeing man. Or woman, as if women actually read this blog.

Because it doesn’t try to purposely waste our petrol like Bukit Unggul, we are going to give it a 3. It’s far, but it’s easy to find.


Price (4/5)

We paid RM65 all in, and they didn’t force any caddy on us, which is good, because we don’t like paying extra, especially after burning so much petrol to get here. In fact, I’ll have to admit, the price was pretty good, considering we were walk ins and in normal cases, walk ins are treated only slightly better than the cow dung remover. Not the person removing the cow dung, but the actual equipment itself. So it was good that they didn’t slaughter us with some ridiculous pricing like 120RM or something, and use the Saujana name to justify the price.

First thoughts

One guy from my flight mentioned that Beringin was a short and easy course.

“No OB one!” he stoutly declared.

He is obviously one of those who fall under the non functional seeing man category. The first hole itself was a daunting dogleg right, to cut, you have to fly over the jungle. I made it, but took 3 to get on and stupidly 3 putted for a double bogey start.

The course was short, definitely. Easy? Not really.

Service (1/5)

Service is definitely not their strongest point. Firstly, the registration girl was so slow, we thought we had entered into an X dimension where time is slowed to half. Seriously, she was just staring blankly at the computer screen for a few moments while the queue was piling up behind us. I finally had enough and got my friend to stand in there while I changed. The changing room wasn’t any better. It had a musty smell of bad ventilation. I changed and came out after 15 minutes, and yep, the line was still there, and we still had to wait.

The cracker would be this. Apparently, this club has no sirens. Sirens, as in not the mythical sea creatures, but the ominous horn that sounds the death knell for all golfers: lightning, stop playing. We struggled through our round with heavy rain at the later half, and as we didn’t hear the siren, we thought, well, let’s trust the club’s lightning meter and play on.

It finally struck us as we teed up the 18th in a blizzard like rain, with no visibility and sheets of water cascading down on us, and us drenched to the bone; that we might not have heard the siren go off. Surely, that was a flash of lightning. And another and another. And here’s like a whole series of them, crackling up above us, as the wind whipped up water like Noah’s flood. We looked around us and saw we were right under high tension wires, carrying probably 1000000 volts of electrical current, in a thunderstorm.

We abandoned the last hole, put in an arbitrary score and headed back to the clubhouse. We went straight to the marshal sitting there, warm as a puppy, with a sleepy look on his face and we demanded, where the heck was their siren? Did it sound at all?

With a shrug, he said, “Tak Tahu”, which translates to, “Don’t know, but you are morons to be playing in this weather.” I doubt there’s any sirens in this club! DARNIT! We could have been fried chicken out there! How can you NOT know if there was a siren or not?

Fairways (2/5)

Bah, cowgrass. I hate to sound picky, since my home course is also cow grass, but after playing in Bermuda, going back to cowgrass simply sucked. Plus, the fairway wasn’t holding up well in the rain. At times, I had to wade through the water to get to my ball. Even the second hole, a long 525m par 5 had fairways narrower than Kate Moss, so stupid as we were, we thumped our drivers nearly into oblivion. No OB? This course was all OB, dude!! But the lower score is really for it’s condition. Besides not holding well up to the rain, the fairway had patches of sand and was fairly bald in many places.

Greens (5/5)

We see what the fuss is about. The greens were apparently called TifEagle, which has as much meaning to us than the word garbulomumbo. Call it what you want, the greens in this club really, really rocked. As in, what a green. While all the other aspects were bad, or medium bad, once you’re on the green, you’re like in a velvet carpet. It’s that good. The ball bit, spun, danced, and basically showed us once again that if Saujana specializes in anything, it’s their greens. Despite the drizzle, the greens played fast, causing me to 3 putt twice in the first 3 holes, before getting used to it. If there’s anything that’s worth the travel, price and struggle through the fairways, it’s the greens. Top notch.

Rough (3/5)

Say what you like about SSG, it punishes way ward shots, and that means all of ours. We like the grip it and rip it style of Palm Garden, Bukit Kemuning, and don’t really fancy constipated courses like Nilai Springs and Seremban 3. Unfortunately, SSG lands in the latter category. There are a few exceptions, but most of the holes, from the narrow par 5 2nd and 7th, to the skinny 15th with hazard on the right. Bring lots of balls and if you’re not confident with your driver, use a 5 wood to negotiate. No kidding. If we had stuff the big dog back into the bag and use our 5 wood, we would have scored like 67 on this course. Well, thereabouts. As it is, being typically monkey-like golfers, we always think our next drive would be better, until we lose a dozen balls or more. Tough rough.

Aesthetics (2/5)

As much as we love the TifEagle greens, the rest of the course just wasn’t extremely picturesque. Unlike Bukit Unggul (as much as we hate that course, you gotta admit, it’s quite pretty), where the OB is lined with jungle; the OB here is typically lalang and ‘semak samun’. I don’t know what it’s called in English. Like those grass that reclaims the land, kind of. It’s not pretty, but worse, there’s no way that your ball might careen off a branch and come back in play, since there’s no branches. It’s just hip deep waste bushes that will eat up your balls.

One thing about Beringin, is that it is a dead town. I think the history was that everyone thought the international airport was going to be up north of Klang Valley, so housing estates like Beruntung and Beringin sprouted up, hoping to cash in. Lots of buyers bought homes there, to be a step ahead. Suddenly, the airport went south to Sepang, and homeowners in Beringin were left to die. I heard a story of someone who purchased his home for 150,000RM and now, the selling price is about 80,000RM.

Around the golf course, you see homes that were supposed to be grand golf homes, like those at Tropicana, but now, overgrown with weeds, Mother Nature is taking it back. It’s actually very depressing. We couldn’t wait to scoot out of there. We half expected wide eyed creatures peeking out from the soulless windows hissing, “Come, my preciousssssss.” Yikes!

Fun Factor(3/5)

We actually had quite a nice time, even though we were struggling like baboons being forced to undergo acupuncture. The OB really got the better of us. But the 10th hole was a cracker. It’s a 290 meter drivable par 4 from an elevated tee box. You’re probably at the highest point and us being golf cowboys, snapped up our drivers, sauntered to the white tees, and let it rip to the green. There’s a huge raving fronting the green so anything that can’t carry 250 meters is in deep do-do. From the white, you needed about 270 to reach the green. From the elevated tee box, we gauged that a 250 meter drive would do the trick, with 230 to cross the ravine.

Both of us who tried made it. In fact, my friend, hit it so long, it reached the black tee of the next hole, over a pair of Korean women teeing up at the red. Mine landed in deep rough at the side and I stumbled around for a par.

Conclusion

If you have a group of jokers who’ll keep you from dying of boredom, it’s actually quite worth the drive to Beringin. I mean, look, if you were planning to head out to Beruntung, you can go the extra mile or so, right? The greens are certainly worth your attention, and you better enjoy it now, in case SSG decides to pull out of the club like they did for Impiana. Unlike Impiana, Beringin just doesn’t have the volume of visitors to keep it from descending back into reclaimed land.

The good: The greens, definitely; the course is very strategically located right next to the turn off; challenging holes like the 10th makes it fun; reasonably well maintained; reasonable pricing

The bad: Heavy on the petrol; fairways are not so great; narrowness of the course might not suit some; aesthetically depressing; deaf and blind marshals that cannot hear or see lightning; there’s no bloody siren.

The skinny: 23 of 40 divots (57.5%). We expected nothing much from the course and got something out of it. We will likely give it another go, if the price of petrol comes down…which might be 50 years from now when we learn the art of teleportation. Still, it’s a go…you gotta try out the greens!

SSG Beringin Score Card

SSG Beringin Information

Address:
Lembah Beringin,
44110 Kuala Kubu Bahru,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Contact: +603-64600016

Fax: +603-64600018