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Sungai Long, Luckiest Day and Bad Caddies

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Based on our previous experience with Sungai Long the conclusion was nice course, crap service. And there has been no changes since.

But firstly – more optimistically – the game at Sungai Long recently will forever be rated as the luckiest day of our collective lives.

I am usually not a firm believer of luck – but thanks to today, I am now pretty sure there’s some sort of lucky counter up there that’s helping us out.

a) My first drive was a hook into the trees on the way to OB – and yet it spilled out nicely onto the fairway.

b) Twice, my playing partner’s drives were all headed into oblivion only for the trees to spit them out.

c) My playing partner skulled his ball from the bunker, zipped over the green over our heads, hit the stationary cart parked opposite and dropped to about 8 feet from the hole.

d) My 10th drive was an exact same drive as my first, but this time, the hook hit the SIDE of the cart path (where the stones were angled at a 45 degree angle), and bounced so hard to the opposite direction, that it landed smack in the middle of the fairway, about 20 meters from the green, which technically made it my first 300 meter drive.

e) A few drives after that, my drive hit the cart path again on the left and bounced again onto the fairway, around 60 meters from the green.

f) And finally – on par 5, and hitting my 3 wood second shot to around 250 meters: the ball faded right and hit (again) the 45 degree angled road bank and bounced back left so hard  that it landed on the green around 10 feet from the hole! I missed the darn eagle but it was the easiest birdie of my life.

I mean one time, two times OK – but this was like constantly LUCKY. I should go and buy me some number.

Anyway even with such divine help, I could only limp to a 91 – Sungai Long has never been easy for me, but the caddies …. If Glenmarie caddies were a bunch of crooks, then Sungai Long caddies are a bunch of idiotic gerbils.

Actually, we expected that anyway yet it’s our fault for taking up the caddies. First, they only gave us one guy at the first tee, promising they will send us another one. It was only through the 3rd hole, that the guy came.

The first caddy didn’t really speak any English and his Malay was only very primitive, so communication was devilish difficult. He was constantly smoking so throughout the 18th, our buggy smelled like a tobacco factory. Not cool, even when we made it clear we didn’t want him to smoke, he would keep his smoke up his sleeves and drag it when we are hitting our shots.

Look – I am willing to overlook all these. Really, it’s our fault for not learning. He didn’t read any greens and was slow in getting our clubs. He was just a terrible caddy…but I don’t blame him. He’s just a labourer, who worked in maintaining the course but because Sungai Long couldn’t afford proper caddies, they just sort of promoted these labourers to become caddies. At least that is in our opinion, since he would stop by and chat with the labourers all the time in (I think) Bangladeshi.

But what we cannot overlook is this: At the end, we go, alright, let’s just give him RM30 because we are kind. As in, he is ABSOLUTELY, PAINFULLY USELESS. Yet, because of our stupid culture of tolerance and kindness that my parents had instilled in me, I was still compassionate enough to give that money to him.

And he looks back and says bluntly in barely intelligible Malay, “You should be giving me RM50. That is standard, boss”.

We were like, WTF?

As in W.T.F.??!

I wanted to retort, yeah, standard if we get standard caddies and not some sort of parasitical organism that happens to be growing at the back of my buggy and smoking the crap out of his life the entire game!

I know Sungai Long is basically going down the toilet, but this is truly humiliating. I bet if Jack Nicklaus knew what they are doing to the club  he designed, he would be telling them to close it down and turn it into a cattle farm.

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Ernie Els is now a Hacker

How the mighty has fallen.

Ernie Els used to be one of the best golfers in the universe, with a swing as sweet and soft as ours are horrible and unsightly. We used to crave for his swing, but end up swinging like a baboon. That is on drugs, and possibly rabid.

But here he is: 6 Putting.

Yes. And this is 6 putting from 3 feet.

I have seen one of my hacker friend 4 putt from 3 feet and we were down to the ground laughing at his misfortune.

Welcome to the new record, which even John Daly won’t beat.

I mean, here it is. The first putt was just a miss. The second putt, like all professionals, he wanted to ram it straight through the break but must have pulled it. So he is back to where he was originally. He must now know the break is to the left.

He misses the SAME way. The same.

Now he is pissed. And also uncertain. He deccelerates his fourth putt and doesnt get enough speed and just breaks again.

He is pissed even worse now. He taps a 5 inch putt and it hits the hole. By now he has given up.

He never recovered and finished with an 80 and third last.

As of this writing, he just teed off his first hole and did much better. He double bogeyed it.

Bye bye Ernie.

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Hunting ground KRPM Hills

The last time I played at Rahman Putra Hills was probably 3 – 4 years ago. I think. We usually end up playing the ‘better’ course, the Lakes when we play Rahman.

I managed to squeeze in a game with a new member there and remember my first game of the year in Glenmarie yielding 94? Well, I went out and even out my average back to 90 by scoring 86. It could have been a heck lot better if not for some really missed opportunities.

The first thing to approach KRPM Hills – if you draw or you miss with a hook – you need to go safe. The 4th nine might look like a cakewalk, but ALL holes have trouble on the left. No kidding. First hole, woods. Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth – OB. Seventh, woods. Eight OB. Nine -OB. And now, they have made cartpath OB. So if you hook it, you are dead. Memories of the explosions in Nilai comes to mind.

So I took out 3 wood on all holes (except the Par 5 second) and managed double, bogey, par, par, bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, par. And that first double bogey came from a three putt.

For the 3rd nine (we played backwards), driver is a little more common and I started the nine with 3 straight pars, 1 bogey on the par 3 after a 3 putt, and followed by two pars and reached the index par 5 playing one over, and hitting 6 straight greens in regulation.

For those of you unfamiliar with the seventh hole par 5, it is a treacherous one. A long drive is needed, followed by an excellent wood over water and then a precise iron onto a really stingy green. Needless to say, I double bogeyed the last 3 holes to end up with a 43-43. Not bad, but not great either, especially playing +1 over 6 holes, and +6 over 3 holes.

Still, it was great to be back at Rahman Putra after touring those great courses like Mines, Kota Permai, Palm Garden etc. Here’s to a lot more games in the 80s!

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Welcome to the year of the Monkeys!

Gilagolf would like to take this time to wish all patient readers of this blog: Happy Chinese New Year and may your irons always be true and straight and your driver never stray from the path of righteousness.

As you know, I am in a sort of a downtime (although I did manage to squeeze in a reasonable round in Glenmarie recently. After starting with an awesome Triple-Double-Double, I managed to crawl home with a respectable 94 despite carrying a bad slice. I didn’t play too badly. The points were all lost in the short game typically:-chunked chips, skulled pitches, overhit puts … things that you generally have after laying off 6 weeks of golf.

The reason why we chose Glenmarie was due to the recent wipeout of the Asian team in the Eurasia cup. If you have watched the cringe worthy trashing, it was like watching Barcelona first eleven playing 100% against Setapak High School for 90 minutes. It was just a total thrashing. It was like me playing 18 holes against my 1 month old baby, who cannot even lift his head. It was like Mike Tyson going 5 rounds against a caterpillar, and I mean the animal, not the construction brand. Which begs the question:

Why did Danny Chia call out ‘Ian Who?’ the day before his singles against Ian Poulter?

For those of you who does not know, this is a tongue and cheek reference to the “Tiger Who” reference that Vijay Singh’s caddie wrote on the back of his cap during the 2000 President’s cup. Tiger got so incensed that he didn’t concede any putt more than 18 inches and won 2&1. The caddie and Vijay obviously thought it was funny, but at the same time, it was a mental game they wanted to play with Tiger.

Now you need to understand the circumstances.

Vijay was a top 10 player in year 2000. Tiger was number 1 and had won 9 tournaments. Vijay however got the Masters that season so they were probably toe to toe in terms of their capability. Vijay knew he needed a bit of push to derail Tiger a little, unfortunately, it backfired and Tiger got pumped up and dispatched the big Fijian. But it was a calculated move. Vijay knew if they were just to play normal, he would probably be routed out of the park. But a fired up Tiger might go both ways – his drives might wander and then who knows? Tiger made almost 10 million that year, Vijay had around 2 million earnings and they were great, great players.

Let’s refocus back on WTF was Danny Chia thinking. Now, I love to support Malaysians as well as the other guy, but the problem with Malaysians I feel is that we don’t think before we open our big mouth. Look at our politicians for God’s sakes. That Ahmad Maslan guy is like an accident waiting to happen everytime he opens his mouth – demonstrating how god awful his intelligence is hovering somewhere between a plankton and a jellyfish. It also demonstrates the eventual degradation that our brains are having and evidence of the de-evolution of human kind. His statements are not just an insult to Malaysians all over, but it’s an insult to mankind as a whole. Or recently (since Maslan has been sacked in his post recently), our wonderful AG (attorney general), making all sorts of STUPID statements. I mean, it’s just STUPID. Why would he say things like: “When someone donates 2.6 Billion to our Prime Minister, why does anyone care?” Umm. WTF is wrong with you, man? If I knew that my wife was paid 1 million dollars by a handsome prince for some service she did for him, you’d think I would say, why should I care? Dude, if our PM is becoming another country’s b*tch, we definitely have the right to give a damn or do you NOT feel that piece of meat poking you in your a$$? Jeez.

Now I am generally neutral to politics in this blog, but I cannot stay neutral to STUPIDITY. And this is STUPIDITY in the highest order. This AG, like that Maslan guy, is an absolute horror show, and if Aliens took samples on human intelligence, they would exterminate us all immediately and start from scratch with bacteria, that probably has more potential of intelligence than us. I just get so worked up when I think about these guys because it’s like having them insult our human race over and over and over. ARGH.

Anyway, back to Danny Chia vs  Ian Poulter.

He wasn’t as bad as our two Malaysians examples above. But the question is why would he say “Ian Who” to the press before the singles game? Why, for the love of God, would you do such a thing, knowing that Ian Poulter is actually a murderer in disguise when he comes to playing singles.

Danny Chia is ranked 256.

Ian Poulter is ranked 55. There is a massive 101 steps between them.

Danny was thinking, hell, I am ranked higher than Tiger Woods now, you know so don’t play play. Let me go and poke this Ang Moh a little in the butt and maybe he will scurry away to the nearest toilet in fear. I am Danny Chiah wor. Malaysian top player of the year, man!

Ian Poulter walked all over poor Danny. It was a car wreck. It was like having a tabby cat being bowled over by an Elephant. It was like Barcelona first 11 playing 100% against my son’s class – which is kindergarten 3 to 4 years old. There was no reason whatsoever why Danny would need to say that. None. All he had to do was to not say things and go out and play like a crazy monkey to beat Ian Poulter. Not to fire up Poulter. Poulter is like, Jeez, this is a total insult to my skill to play these jokers. I’m going to just use a halfset and tee off with my putter just to even things up.

At one hole, and this was when I turned off from watching the tournament – the camera was on Ian Poulter’s distinguished gait walking after a great shot to stick it near the hole. It then panned to a slumped Danny Chia taking a smoke. Yes, taking a smoke. I am not sure whether I’ve seen any PGA player doing that – but it just shows the gap of professionalism between the two players. PGA players CAN smoke, but they don’t, mainly because their sponsors pressure them and they earn tons. Asian players probably have lesser pressure from their sponsors, since instead of Rolex sponsoring them, they generally get sponsored by Roleks (sic). Instead of Nike, they get sponsored by Bata, and instead of Mercedes, they get sponsored by Proton Iswara. But c’mon, it’s just a turnoff, you know to show how different the class of golf is among the two players.

Don’t get me wrong, Danny played really well the first few days, and if it wasn’t for his partner’s 1 foot putt miss, they might have won one game. I was totally supporting him, and it’s just disappointing that he would think it’s a good idea to call out Ian the day before. It just shows, like the two examples of humans above, that we are truly in the year of the Monkey now.

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Summarising 2015

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So 2015 has ended, and now 2016 is in but golf is going to be scarce. I suppose this is a good time as any to look back what has been achieved last year.

First of, summary stats above.

The most damning stats here is the 91.21 average gross. This is just not good enough. I wanted to set out last year to break 90, but in 39 rounds played, I only broke 90 15 times, which is a poor 38% while only breaking 85 in 2 tries (both times at Mines, incidentally). I suppose the only good news is that I only broke 100 twice – once in Seri Selangor and the other one recently in the blow out in Nilai Springs. Otherwise, it’s mostly 90 – 95 scoreline. In fact, it took me 6 games into 2015 before carding an 86, and in first 10 games, only broke 90 twice. The good news, is that, in the last 10 games, I broke 90 on 6 occasions. Granted, these were played at a lot better courses compared to the first 6 games and I didn’t have to tackle Seri Selangor in the last 10 games. My fairway hits are also low, but it doesn’t really matter because in some games, I can hit all the fairways but still fail miserably in scoring, while the opposite is true, whereby I miss all fairways and still score pretty well. My GIR is up, which is good, and at 2.56% par breakers, it means I had my share of birdies also.

2015stats1

 

A further break down as above.

I recorded 18 birdies last year, of course, the best coming from the recent Mines game where I hit back to back birds. Overall, I have around 4.5 pars per game, which technically is just not good enough. I should be comfortably averaging around 6 – 7 pars per game. The encouraging fact is that my iron games has improved a lot. My par 3 is being played a lot better, and has highest conversions of pars and play to only +0.96. Which is great. That means, if I can work out my par 4s, I should be playing a steady 15 – 16 handicap, as opposed to a very unsteady 16.
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Finally – horses for courses. It’s pretty obvious my favourite courses also happens to be the best courses – Glenmarie Valley and Gardens, and Mines. Of course, Bangi has to be there since it;s such a short course. Kota permai, Sungai Long are played around 90, while Palm Garden, around 91.

So there you have it. 2015 has been filled with some pretty amazing shots (2 birdies in a row for example) and some pretty crap ones (10 greens in regulations and 6 three putts), and as I approach 2016, new father of 2, I don’t expect too much gametime. Whatever game I have, hopefully I can learn how to take those opportunities and break that darn 90!

Happy hacking everyone.

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Golf is truly a strange game — Again

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A few posts back, I made a noise about how golf is so strange – that even hitting like 10 GIR, I can still manage to 3-putt 6 of these greens in regulation, and I threw away my putter – literally up in the air. Because I am so cheap, I had to go collect it back.

Kota Permai is a really nice course to play in. The holes are challenging, the par 3s are memorable and the course setup is tricky and the two ending holes are worthy adversaries. However, breaking 90 hasn’t been easy for me there. I played 89-94-90 in my previous 3 outings there and it didn’t really start that great for me this round, after hooking my first drive into the woods and the second one as well. My first par came on the 14th, my favourite par 3, which is elevated, and usually require a strong pitching wedge to clear the front greens. I hit my shot to around 6 feet. Unfortunately, two of the other players we were teaming up against both slamdunked their shots – one of them to about 3 feet, and another actually hit the flagpole before bouncing 5 feet off. Both of them birdied.

From there, I sort of struggled abit until the last par 5 where I putted in a 15 footer, followed by the next par 5 on the front 9, where I putted in another 10 footer.

I was actually hitting my irons excellent but my drives kept blocking right, causing triple and doubles to start appearing on my card. I three putted 3 of my greens in regulation, so my scores should have been a lot better, but nothing beats the final. I hit my only second fairway with a good drive (my second good drive only actually), and then with a seven iron, completely top the crap out of my ball, causing it to launch low and skim over the fairway and luckily onto the green. When I approached the uphill green, someone from the practice green said, “WAH, that’s  damn good shot!”

I looked and saw my ball nestling 4 inches from the hole – from arguably my worst iron approach shot of the day.

Golf is a funny game indeed – sometimes, the good is not rewarded, and the bad goes unpunished. Kind of like our country, I think!

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Birdie Run Ends

I didn’t want to jinx it so I didn’t mention it.

But I was on a birdie run which ended last week.

For 5 games, I had at least one birdie. My birdie run stood at six when my luck ran out in Sungai Long. Although I cracked 90, I missed a lot of putts, including a 6 footer for birdie on the 10th.

So far, I’m pretty ok this year, I am averaging around 0.44 birdie, meaning, around 1 birdie in 2.3 games or so. That means birdies aren’t that rare anymore. Which means my irons are generally getting better, because it sure aint my stupid putter.

Anyways, I am going to be taking a longish break – around 3 weeks or so without golf – partly due to the haze, but mainly due to travelling, so won’t be updating in a while, unless Tiger Woods hits the news again.

Happy Hacking, Gilagolfers!

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Playing in the 80s

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For those figuring out why I am so obsessed with shooting in the 80s, is this:

a) I’ve been playing golf since 2004. That means it’s 11 years and counting stuck in this darn game and still figuring out how to play it properly.

b) I’ve undergone a tremendously stressful amount of golf swings – because I thought I was Tiger Woods – and now I have a swing resembling Iron Man fighting with the Giant Python. Basically, a very bad overswing and a long drive that can easily go awry. I basically have very little idea where my swing will end up as soon as I initiate the downswing.

c) I feel that someone who can routinely drive 200 meters above should be scoring in the high 80s. Which I am not until recently. For the record, this year, I am still playing around 91.71 average. For the past 10 games, I am playing at 90.4. For the past 5 games, 90.4 exactly. On the USGA handicap calculator, I am playing to a 14 handicap. On my last 10 games, I am playing to a 16 which is basically a true reflection of my game.

d) Shooting in the 80s is devilish hard when you have a game like mine. Basically tee to green (if I get a reasonable tee shot), I am ok. I struggle mightily at my chips and putts. Mightily.

So here’s the plan for the next few games:

Plan A: Hit the fairway. This is essential. At 38%, that means per round I am hitting only 5 fairways out of 14. This is crap bad, especially if we don’t drive it that long. I am hitting my irons reasonably well eversince I changed to my MP-54s.

Plan B: Play short. I find I always end up in crap when I over shoot my irons. Since changing my irons, my distance control has become somewhat better. I am playing

10 – 70 meters = 60 degree

70 – 100 meters = Sand Wedge

100 – 120 = Gap Wedge

120 – 130 = PW

130 – 140 = 9 iron

140 – 150 = 8 iron

150 = 7 iron

160 = 6 iron

170 = 5 iron

Anything above 175 = 7 wood or 3 wood.

It’s really interchangeable once I go past the 140 mark. Sometimes I’ll hit an 8 iron, sometimes a 7. Depends on the hole. For instance, in Glenmarie, one of the hole had such extreme elevation that from 155, I hit a 9 iron and still long it.

These are not really my listed distance. I hit it shorter, but the idea is to hit it before the green or just front of the green, since my flight (and my old golf balls) do not promote the professional backspin…instead it just rolls and rolls after hitting the green.

Since opting to play a more conservative “do not attack the flag” style I’ve seen my scores hover within the high 80s or low 90s. I don’t experience those massive blow holes much anymore.

Next stop: Kota Permai, which besides Mines, is probably one of our favourite courses to play on!

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Golf is a funny game

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It is. A funny game, that is.

When you play like crap nuts, you sometimes still win like an immortal. When you play like an immortal, you end up losing like crap nuts.

Palm Garden had always been a good hunting ground previously. Now, the new palm garden is a different beast. Yes, the length is no big deal, but the befuddlement on this New course would be the darn greens. Most if not all greens are tabletop, meaning if you miss these greens you will end up rolling down to New Mexico and having to loft up your shot again. It’s annoying.

Another matter would be the bunkers and the green itself – playing very quick, and completely bamboozling me in this round.

Think about it – 7/14 fairways hit for me is very good stats. I average 39% meaning I hit roughly 5 fairways a round only. But I hit 10 greens in regulation this round. 10! My average is 23%, meaning I only hit around 4 greens in regulation this round. I 2.5x my average this round alone, and at one point, hit six greens in regulation IN A ROW.

Out of 10 greens in regulation, I three putted SIX. I two putted two and I one putted two. That’s six bogeys, two pars and two birdies for my 10 GIR. What the heck is going on??!

Putting had always been a middling aspect of my game, but at one time, when I 3 putted my fifth green in a row, I simply tossed away my putter about 20 feet in the air and told the caddy that she could have my putter.

The very next green, I hit a tricky 10 footer for birdie.

The other birdie occurred on the 8th, when my drive left me only around 50 meters, and I hit a half sand wedge to 1 foot of the hole.

You would think this meant I won some money as well.

No, I ended up losing all 3 frames of our sixers and forking out for lunch, that cost me RM100.

Sixers is played like this:

a) A partners B, C partners D for the first six holes. The next six holes, everyone swaps, and the last six holes everyone swaps again so that everyone will partner each other once in the 3 ‘frames’.

b) We play best ball and if that is square, then second ball counts.

c) No strokes given. In todays game, we had a 13 handicapper, a 16 (me), and 18 and a 24. Even when I partnered with the 13 handicapper, he played so badly, the 18 and 24 handicaper won without strokes given. WHAT?!

d) We played fringes – birdie, sandy par/birdie, escalation within the frame, twin pars/birdies for partners etc. One fringe=1 ball.

e) We played variations of 3-1-1, (game-dormie-buy) meaning each sixer we are playing 3 balls for game, 1 for dormie, and 1 for the buy.

f) Depending on our mood, we could play RM 10 or RM5 for a ball. So it could be a RM15-5-5 or RM30-10-10 for each sixers. Included the fringes, we could really lose quite a lot, for instance I lost 10 balls today despite playing one of the best round tee to green of my life (and one of the worst putting rounds of my life).

If I putted well, I would have won all frames, saved RM100, scored around 84 or 86, and gone home a happy man. Golf is a funny game indeed.

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Michael Breed: Shut up.

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OK, yes, I am watching the PGA Championship on PGAtour.com. It’s free and it’s following Tiger on every hole.

And he’s playing like an idiot. He is +3 now with just a couple of holes left and if he doesn’t turn around tomorrow, he is MISS CUT for another major.

But you know what’s more annoying that a Tiger-less Major?

Michael Breed. He’s one of the commentators and the so called Swing Expert.

He’s this guy. He always has a comment on how people swing and he breaks it down as if he’s a science expert.

Michael, it’s a load of crap.

I see how he analyses. He draws based on his own assumptions and he concludes based on his own definitions. For example, he drew a line to show Tiger’s golf shaft angle in relation to his hips. And basically he wants to show when Tiger came down on his swing, his club head is inside this line. But when he pauses the video, he removes the line, and re-draws it, but this time, noticeably higher than the previous line he drew.

What an idiot!

This is what we call in Chinese, “Lying to small kids”. And his voice is also very squeaky. And he is the perfect example of those who cannot play, teach. Except that he also cannot teach. So those who cannot play or teach, cheats.

Anyway, who is doing worse that Tiger now?

Keegan Bradley. He is so Emo. Always kicking his bag when he is pissed.