Very few courses actually make it into our most anticipated list of courses to play in. Tropicana. Glenmarie. Templers. RSGC. Saujana. KLGCC of course. In the southern state of Johor, there is one course that’s supposed to rule them all:

Horizon Hills.

I mean the name already evokes awe. The premise of consecutive Iskandar Opens, the place where it’s supposed to be so pristine, that LPGA and PGA golfers would reroute their journeys to come by this little peninsular called Malaysia. Aside from KLGCC, Horizon Hills, near Nusajaya and in turn near the Tuas exit, captures the imagination as the country’s top tiered golf destination.

So, ten of us woke up at 5 am from various locations, to meet the tee off time at 7:22 am, with all other later tee times ‘Taken up’ according to the friendly neighbourhood reception (do note the sarcasm a little).

Travel (2/5)

You’d think that being such an internationally acclaimed golf course, there would be some sense in direction. We came up from Singapore to play and no where near the exit or along the highway exiting Tuas into Johor did we see a sign to Horizon Hills. We had to depend completely on Google Maps. And that turned out wrong, so we had to depend entirely on Garmin, which led us to such a long and circuitious route that our 30 minutes drive turned into a near 1 hour, and we nearly missed the cursed tee time.

More signs would be nice, Horizon Hills, really.

Price (1/5)

Again, I understand the prestige, and the need to draw more money from our Singaporean brethrens of clubs; so we were willing to fork out RM146 per person to play on the course. Never mind it’s a weekday, off peak. Never mind that we had the Top Premier voucher discounts. Never mind that we were forced to take up caddies whom we did not want. It was all worth it, since this was KLGCC of the south, was it not? This was the Pearl of Johor, right?

With that premise, you would straight away have a forebiding feeling that Horizon Hills, instead of soaring to greater heights and exceed all our lofty and admittedly at times, unrealistic expectations—oh how I wish I could have stated it—Horizon Hills instead descends into one of the most inglorious, most ignominious and most underwhelming experience that we ever had in a long long time. If you are in a hurry and you are not interested to read further, here’s our verdict: Is Horizon Hills worth the money you pay for?

Yes it is, just like how it’s worth every penny to pay RM1 million to eat dried cow shit bred specifically to ingest every sort of parasitical worms into your body, which will destroy your intestines through the most painful and excruciating death possible.

That’s sarcasm. Truth is, simply: No.

First thoughts

It didn’t start out too badly actually. From the second nine, when you stare out from an elevated tee with water on the right and a thin strip of fairway, you could just feel the stirring in your veins that you’re going to have a good game. ‘Could’ being the key word, because I didn’t, and proceeded to hack my drive way out into the water right before collapsing into a triple bogey start. I hate those starts. But I don’t blame the course, it’s simply my inability to get to any kind of comfortable start in golf.

The first impression of Horizon Hills was good, because like Bukit Jawi, from the club house, it offers a great vista of the journey you will undertake in the next four hours. Plus, the clubhouse looked as it it belonged to a James Bond flick, with expensive fittings and a state of the art design. It’s a pity we are not reviewing golf clubhouse architecture, Horizon Hills, I’m sure you would be in the DAGTH status if so. Which makes me wonder, why in blue blazes was so much money spent on the club house? Why not put more into maintaining the golf course instead? It must have been a non-golfing senior management idiot that made that decision.

Service (3/5)

I am quite tempted to give it lower since the caddies we had were practically useless. I mean we ask for reads and they didn’t get it right. They were friendly, yes, but unfortunately woefully underequipped for the price we paid for them. We didn’t pay them to converse. And why oh why do caddies insist on flirting?? Are we that awesome looking with our six pack abs and bulging muscles? We paid them so they make us into golfing machines that would go all out to secure the testy win that will win us RM2!! Maybe we just didn’t get the A grade caddies. Maybe we just looked like cheap Malaysians instead of high class Singaporeans who would tip them SGD40 instead of RM40.

However, the reception lady, although somewhat grumpy, was quick and the lady was friendly, and got us course bound in no time. Plus, the golf bag handling guy was also understanding when we had a mix up with our bags at the end. So a mediocre 3/5.

Fairways (0/5)

And here’s what the trouble starts. Horizon Hills, if you are going to look like a high class course, price like a high class course; why on earth does your fairway resemble the rearend of an African Babboon?? One word for Horizon Hills fairway on December 2011:

Awful.

2^nd hole for instance, we saw track marks and mud all across the fairway so much so that we had to implement lift and clean…and it didn’t even freaking rain the day before! Come on! I mean it’s not all bad, as in Selesa Hills bad; but for a five-star course to have this kind of fairway is simply unacceptable. The maintenance guy should be dried out for this. It’s like, if I was backpacking and stayed at a Rm10 per night hostel next to a whorehouse, I wouldn’t complain too much about the bed bugs, the rats, the lizards on the ceiling and the occasional corpse in the closet: but imagine you went and paid for the Mandarin, or Hilton, and you get a bed that’s only slightly more comfortable than a coffin; you’d sure to go barnacles, right? You’d complain! You’d not tolerate that you have cockroaches running around the bathroom!

So why isn’t anyone screaming foulplay over Horizon Hills? Charging the way they did and giving us an experience that we could as soon find in the football field behind my house, where the occasional rusted nails and used underwear can be found near the goal post?? And the gall of it all, was when the grumpy registration lady (to do her justice, I believe she was just completely clueless) proudly declared, when I gave my customary complain of ‘wah, so expensive’: “We are increasing all prices next year for Horizon Hills!”

You’d think this is based on actual studies of product development, but no, it’s probably on the whim of some higher ups, who completes the above sentence with “Because I want to drive a new Audi A7 next year also!”

Huge huge, utter disappointment for Horizon Hills fairway and maintenance. They should have given a discount, an I-am-sorry voucher for having a course that has muddy fairways, thank you, come again.

Greens (3/5)

The greens were thankfully in a reasonable shape. The speed was about 9 on the stimp but strangely played slower than that. But overall the roll was quite pure and the challenging contours and largeness of the greens created some good challenges reminiscent of KRTU. In fact, it boiled down to the final green for my team, when my team mate’s game exploded into undetectable pieces and I struggled to a bogey. With all the stakes on the line, my two opponents were already 3 on. Both lag putted their 4^th to 3 and 4 feet respectively and I was about to throw in the towel.

But the blessed contours of Horizon Hills green first made the initial putt veer right, and the 3 footer knee knocker molested the edge of the cup before turning away…giving my team the win! Due to unforced errors. But the green was quite demanding, with lots of precision lags, and 3-4 footers of non-gimmes. Lots of par opportunities slip by but we were generally pleased with the development of the greens.

Rough (3/5)

One of the greatest challenges and aspects of Horizon Hills isn’t the greens or the cowdung fairway; it would be the rough and bunkers. It was just a torture to play on. I was driving the ball as well as I could ever drive, but very often, I either run through the fairway or it lands just off the fairway. There’s no first, second cut. Just fairway, and deep deep rough. I had to literally play the ball off the heel of my right, and power a hook to get it out of the stuff. It was no joke, really, I nearly snapped my wrist at one point to muscle the ball throught the thick stuff. This was the pitbull grass, so much feared and revered through Saujana, that has somehow ended up here.

And that wasn’t even the end of it: Bunkers. EVERYWHRE. This course had more bunkers than the Omaha Beach did on D-Day. Believe me, these were not the nampy pampy bunkers we get back at KL areas, where you could put of it. These were SARLAC bunkers, where once you get in, you ain’t ever going to get out without luck and skill. My triple bogeys aside from the first hole were bunker experiences. At one hole, my drive again flew the fairway and into squishy rough next to the buggy track. I powered my 9 iron through on line and fell literally 1 meter short in flight and rolled back into one of the hungry SARLAC bunkers. Third shot into the edge. Fourth shot didn’t come out. Shot five came out only a little. It was crazy to see a guy hacking dirt into the green but no ball, it was that difficult.

The reason why the score isn’t high is the lack of maintenance on the rough. At some parts they were muddy beyond belief. They were unplayable and we had to take free drops in dry areas. Again, it’s such a pity because Horizon Hills could  have offered an amazing and memorable experience, but instead fizzled out like a moon traveler firework.

Aesthetics (2/5)

Again, I would love to say Horizon Hills is an exciting, beautiful golf course and that everyone that comes here would be overawed. I am a firm believer that the golfing experience must take golfers out of the current mundane world we all live in, and transport them into 4 hours of forgetful bliss from work or any reminder of work. That’s why Datai, not just being a jungle course, but a course that provides that escapism, can score so high.

Horizon Hills tries. The first nine (back nine) was reasonable enough with good mixture of nature and functional golf. But from hole 12 onwards, we could just sense the construction going around the course. Make the turn and all the illusions of escapism is gone. The sky line of Horizon Hills is reprehensible. Houses being built by the course, in hole 1, the constant banging and shouting of workers and machinery at work as you putt on the first green. And from there, every hole, almost, houses staring vigil at us hacking up the beloved game of golf. It descended from a KLGCC wannabe to a Bukit Jalil replica. And we don’t like it one bit. Especially since it exthorted money from us the way it did.

Disappointing backdrop to an otherwise reasonable looking course. But really, the house development simply takes away the experience of golfing. It’s just not great to survey the hole from the tee box and have the caddie say, “Target the crane.” As in construction crane, not the nature bird-crane, you know.

Fun Factor (3/5)

Horizon Hills do have some fun holes. Be on your A-Game to tackle the par 5s, expecially the closing and snaking 18^th. It has to be the grandest and toughest hole in the entire course. There are islands of landing spots meandering across the lake. The first one on the left, and the second landing spot to the right has a rivulet cutting across, requiring a 230 meter carry, according to the caddy. I borrowed my friend’s R11, and whiplash it across, as did my other friend. Unfortunately, those were our test balls, having already played safe to tee off at the nearest landing spot. We all proceeded to completely unwind in this par 5, and everyone ended up in the water somehow or another.

The fun factor is always there when you have two or more flights and friends just jabbing at each other. There’s a lot of thrash talking going on which I like, and even though the stakes weren’t big, our pride was more than enough for us to become ultra competitive.

Horizon Hills is very contoured,  with the water easier to navigate compared to the awesome Legends Golf Course with all the mass of water around the course. Horizon’s main defence lies in the Sarlac Bunkers. Every bunker is a freaking adventure, and many of our challenges today and assault on the greens were rudely halted by one of the sarlac bunkers dotting the entire course and messing around with our minds. I tried my SW, my Approach wedge, my 60 degree, my chipping 40 degree and still struggled to get anything out of these bunkers. Thankfully I didn’t spend a lot of time in it…the time I spent in there was severely penalized, unfortunately. Some of my other friends had a better time however, including one guy who had a miracle bunker out to 1 feet on a crucial hole.

It was a fun time indeed, and the weather held up it’s end of the bargain by only raining after our game. The only drawback was just the fairway condition, which is absolutely inexcusable for a course of this magnitude.

Conclusion

I will struggle to outright recommend this course to Gilagolfers. Simply due to the price. If you can tag this down to RM100 or below for an offpeak rate, then it would be reasonable. But at RM150 almost, adding the caddie tips, and with no food voucher? You can play Orchard 5 times for this amount and you’re likely going to have more fun there! So unless they discount their prices, or give pristine fairways and not the cowdung they have pieced together so far, I’d say stay away from Horizon Hills, it ain’t worth your money or time. Better go over to Johor Premium Outlet to shop than to waste your hard-earned money on a course that is obviously living off its reputation, but doing nothing to fulfil the same reputation.

The good:Famed golf course, challenging rough and bunkers; countours on greens and fairways offers a very unique gameplay; good looking clubhouse and reasonable service.

The bad: Completely overpriced; the fairways are one of the worst I’ve seen, and this includes fairways on UPM, which doubles up for cows to eat from and shit in; caddie services have no value other than looking like they think they are pretty (they are NOT); travel remains a drag; aestethically more of a Bukit Jalil than a KLGCC.

The skinny: 17 of 40 divots (42.5%). It’s unbelievable that Horizon Hills can only muster up a sorry score the same as these hall of famers: UPM, Kulim, Harvard, Cameron Highlands. Like Glenmarie, Horizon Hills fails to impress and is one of this years’ most disappointing golf course and golf experience. In fact, Daiman, Palm Resort, Palm Villa are all more recommended than this orverpriced and overhype piece of…course. It’s a no-go as far as I’m concerned, but the potential is there if they buck up on their service and maintenance. Maybe try again in dry season next year and don’t expect so much. Don’t expect caviar and lobster termidor, just burger and fries, and you’ll be ok then.

Horizon Hills GCC ScoreCard

Horizon Hills Details

Address: No. 1 Jalan Eka, Horizon Hills, 79100 Nusajaya, Johor Darul Takzim

Contact: +607-2323166

Fax: +607-2323919

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

Email: general@hhgcc.com.my

I recall in our previous adventure in Johor, we totally got mixed up with Palm Resort Allamanda and IOI Palm Villa. Apparently, naming originality isn’t one of Johor golf clubs’ brightest points. So this time, in our annual pilgrimage to Johor (while the wives battle it out in their Singapore Shopping Spree), we made sure that we will get to IOI Palm Villa Golf, and not another random, similar sounding golf club.

Travel (3/5)

Travel is very simple to IOI Palm Villa. It’s a lot easier to access than the horrendous Legends, or as we will see later, the utterly confusing Horizon Hills.

You can exit at the Kulai exit coming down from KL and go through the familiar Kelapa Sawit township until you hit Kulai. Go pass Kulai till you see a ramp going up that says IOI Palm Villa Golf Resort. Just follow up the ramp and go along till you see a right turn. Compared to Legends, this is a cakewalk.

Price (4/5)

We used the top premier voucher and paid RM43 for our game. Now, this is a great price, not the cheapest, however. There is a golf course called Orchard golf in Kulai that goes to the tune of RM36 per person, which comes to about SGD15, or more or less USD10, or better still, 8 British Pounds. But at RM43, it’s a good price to pay for a reasonable golf course that’s easy to access from Singapore, and that doesn’t force you to drive deep into the palm oil plantation just to tee up.

First thoughts

Wide. That’s what we thought. We didn’t have any knowledge of this course at all, save for the fact that we had wanted to play it for some time. The first tee is a slight dogleg left, with plenty of bailout on the right of the fairway. The second thought comes as flat. You could see adjoining holes in a flat terrain in what used to be a palm oil plantation ground, and there was nothing special about it. But of course, with memories of another IOI golf course, which seem to be a lot better than the Berjaya Junk Courses, we hope this would match up with the now-decrepit and non-existent  IOI Palm Garden. (Why all the Palms?? In case you are a foreigner wondering if these Palms mean the nice ‘Palms’ you see in a desert oasis, I hate to be the bearer of truth, ‘Palm’ in Malaysian colloquy  means Palm Oil trees. Which is a huge difference in terms of looks. Like between Sophie Marceu and an iguana.

Service (3/5)

Again, I can’t comment a whole lot, but they got us to the course quick enough, which is always a good thing and although we didn’t get to play on the first and second nine, we were forced to play on the 3^rd nine (IOI course). Now I know the mantra to never play on the 3^rd nine as it generally represents the hideous cousin of the first and second: but we were honestly very surprised at the condition of the course on the 3^rd nine. Basically, they didn’t even force any caddies on us, so we’re giving this a fair 3/5.

Fairways (2/5)

The fairways suffered a little from the rain, but it was generally in a fair condition. Strangely, the Putra nine seems a little more worse for the wear compared to the usually neglected 3^rd nine. The problem with the fairways was simply that some of the grass was not cut, leaving the ball in an oftentimes awkward position of being embedded amongst long grass even on the fairway. Other than that, the fairways are wide and inviting, encouraging you to rip it as hard as you could. Unfortunately I was just having a horrendous time with my drives and constantly pulled or duck hooked my way through the game. I hate it when this happens, and why oh why must it always always occur when I’ve travelled half my country to play in Johor??!?!

Greens (1/5)

Horrible greens. With one look, we knew this was no IOI Palm Garden. This was the ugly stepsister. This was the Elphapa, the ugly half of the good witch. I mean one or two sandy greens could be tolerated, but almost all? Patches of sand as well as maintenance turf made it nearly impossible to putt across, and this really took the fun out of the game in many instances.

Rough (1/5)

Complementing the greens in horrendousity, would be the rough, specifically the bunkers. It didn’t rain on the day we played, so it must have rained the day before, but still, that gives plenty of time for the drainage to get to work. NOT. Some of the bunkers were turned into swimming pool, and in one hole, the par 3 8^th of the Putra Course, my partner hit the greenside bunker and he had to leave his ball in there because there was no way to get it without removing his shoes and waddling in! Ridiculous. And this was not a one off problem, several crucial bunkers were just left stagnant with water, breeding aedes mosquitoes and infecting golfers with dengue. Come on, Palm Villa, fix your drainage please.

Aesthetics (2/5)

Here’s what you can do: dig up Bukit Kemuning, transport it hundreds of miles south and plonk it into IOI Palm Villa and you’ll see essentially the similar course. Wide open fairways, flat as an airport runway, and aesthetically emasculated, with just palm trees (iguana palm oil trees, not Sophie Marceau trees, please) dotting the landscape. It might be a welcome sight for hackers, or even for me, the way I was hooking the ball, but it’s not anything special at all, and no holes really jump out at you and makes you go, wow, not bad, I like this course! If you’re here to just play functional golf, then Palm Villa is good, if you expect something that looks like IOI Palm Garden, or even the butthole of IOI Palm Garden, I’m afraid you’ll be a little disappointed. Nothing special looking at all.

Fun Factor (3/5)

Now it might not be a beauty to look at, but like Bukit Kemuning, you can have loads of fun at Palm villa, simply because of the generosity of the fairway. The greens and bunkers really take you out of the instance though, so a mediocre rating here would be fair. We weren’t playing very well, but yet managed to shoot a decent score, which underline the forgiveness of this course, and it might be a very attractive option for beginners, or hacks like me who doesn’t understand the term ‘Course management’ or ‘play it safe’. We go by the rule of ‘let’s hit the most expensive club in the bag’ or ‘let’s hit the loudest sounding club in the bag so it makes us look professional’. Nice.

One instance did occur when we made the turn into IOI course, the third nine. We waited for a while for two guys to play ahead of us, intending for them to ask us to join them. They were playing a little slow, and you could see there was guy A, who was teaching guy B. And we recognized these boys from Singapore, as they took the same route as us out, and drove a Singaporean car. When they were moving away, my first drive took a huge bounce on the road and must have landed somewhat near where they were, but they have already driven off. We played the hole normal, and my friend accidentally overkilled his third shot into the green and yet again took a big bounce on the buggy track and landed near the next tee box, where these Singaporeans were. Mine was on the green in 3.

As my friend approached them, the guy A started saying:

“Is this your ball?”

“Yes.”

“Young man, do you know that you are playing a very dangerous game? Can’t you see we are in front of you?? Play the game as it’s meant to be played! OK!”

“OK, sorry…”

“Look, I give you first warning. One Warning. No more after this! One warning!”

“OK sorry….” He picks up the ball and prepares to go away.

“You won’t be sorry if you do it again, I tell you. One warning! You better be careful, ah! I’ll make sure you won’t be saying sorry if you do this again. Listen, one warning, I tell you!”

He makes a threatening gesture, with one finger raised, his voice getting louder and louder.

I was observing from the buggy, about to get my putter to putt, and I got so tired of this jackass riding my friend over one mistake and kept repeating like a paralyzed llama ‘One warning…” that I yelled at him, “OK, uncle, sorry already, play on! Don’t waste time! Don’t get angry, just play on, move!!”

“You won’t be saying sorry anymore if you do this again!”

At this point, I was ready to unload my new packet of 20 golf balls into his throat. I mean, how many freaking times does he want us to say sorry? And why the he*l does he keep repeating himself by saying one warning, when he’s obviously giving more than one freaking, stupid warning? It was a good thing he drove off after that, and when my friend came back to me, I asked, “Is he an old twit or what?”

“No, he’s only slightly older than we are.”

In disbelief, I looked on as the Singaporean drove away.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not denying we made a mistake. But the ball bounced on the cart path, for goodness sake, it didn’t land into your thick skull and caused a brain fracture, which I’d say would do wonders to you since you can’t freaking count anyway. And we said sorry. We were even ready to buy him a drink. The initial reaction of anger is OK. We are all sorry for that incident.

His reaction was as if we strapped his entire family onto the railway track and let the MRT rolled over all of them, and on top of that set up a bomb to desecrate his entire ancestoral tombs. Now, I have loads of good Singaporean friends, and I suppose a few of them also read this blog; but seriously, it’s jackasses like this twat who gives Singaporeans such a bad name and get stereotyped as guys high on testosterone walking around with their colon pulled out of of their butt and strangling around their neck. I’m certain 99% of Singaporean blokes are good dudes, and would not hesitate to just kick the crap out of this jackanape who had just embarrassed your entire nation.

Doesn’t he realize that he’s a good 60 km into Johor, land of Malaysia, home of people who have high tolerance for everything except idiotic golfers from Singapore who acts like they have their colon yanked out of their a*se and strangling their neck? Doesn’t he realize that we could have been Johor thugs who would have murdered him there and dump his body in the palm oil estate and no one would have missed him one bit? Come on!

We were wrong, he had the right to be angry. Shake hands, play ball. If you want, jug is on us, and let’s share our war stories. But let’s leave it as that. Are you crazy to go threatening two Malaysians in their own country? Is he on crazy pills?? His friend didn’t even squeak a word, probably out of embarrassment of playing with a guy with PMS and too much estrogen mixed into his system or he had the right idea that he could have been killed then and there by two Malaysian thugs pretending to be very good golfers.

Conclusion

IOI Palm Garden’s saving grace is the RM43 with Top Premier Voucher. They will struggle to keep up the crowd if their greens continue to suck and their bunkers represent African Wildebeeste waterholes, but the course show good promises with maintenance on the fairway, a very forgiving gameplay and bailout areas for the beginners or the serial hooker, like yours truly.

The good: Price is hard to beat for a gameplay given like this; wide and flat, reminiscent of Bukit Kemuning; fairways are having good prospect to become better; drive and travel is quite straightforward and accessible from Singapore; 27 holes gives plenty of opportunity of different gameplays and speed of play.

The bad: Horrendous bunkers that are unplayable and has zero drainage; terrible greens that are sandy and bumpy; flat aesthetics might not appeal to some, unmemorable holes; risk of running into crazy Singaporeans who want to pick a fight with Malaysians, and who stroll about with their entire colon scarfed around their neck.

The skinny: 19 of 40 divots (47.5%). You really can’t go too wrong with IOI Palm Villa, if you’re around the Kulai area. Legends is nearby, but it’s more difficult. Orchard is also within reach and is also an option but this is a great course for you to start hunting in golf, and save your precious golf balls. Beware of the water bunkers and sandy greens, however, but for RM43, I don’t think there’s any cause for too vehement of complaints. Recommended a go for this!

Palm Villa IOI ScoreCard

Palm Villa IOI Details

Address: PTD 44500 Jalan Indah Utama ,Bandar Putra , 8100 Kulai

Contact: +607-5999099

Fax: +607-5988101

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

Email: NA

Finally, A Famosa. I’ve played there several times actually, but for some dang reason, never got down to writing a review about it. I don’t know why…it has always been one of the better experiences that I’ve had, and in early November, a gila band went over to this Melaka course to hack and review. This is the story.

Travel ( 3/5)

Among all the Melaka courses, A Famosa is one of the most accessible ones. I am obviously extremely biased to the northern folks like me who have to travel south into Melaka. For the Johor flers and Singaporeans, well, you’ll need to drive up further, because A Famosa is right near the border of Negeri Sembilan and Melaka, making it only about 1 and a half hour away…it’s like traveling to Lembah Beringin and back. In fact, it’s about 30 plus km away from Air Keroh, that houses the other 3 courses in Melaka. So, all in all, A Famosa is definitely favoured.

Coming from KL, it’s extremely easy to access. It’s the golf course right next to the highway, and travelers en route to Singapore will often look wistfully at the course from the north south highway, wishing for a one day stop before being corralled by the wife in the maze of Singapore shopping centres.

Exit at the Simpang Empat turnoff, or it does say A-Famosa, so go for it. Once off the toll, take a left and then another left at Jalan Kamus, after the petrol station. Then just go all the way, under the highway and look out for a sign that says A-Famosa. There you have it, you’ve reached it.

Price ( 2/5)

Price wise, we had a bit of promotion. I bought a bunch of vouchers from the MATTA fair that came with a villa for us to stay (more on that later). With the promotion, it was RM20 for the green fee. But wait for it, RM90 for the buggy. Yikes! So it’s RM45 + RM20, and RM30 for the caddie, shared. So per person, on a week day, we paid RM80. Plus tips of RM15 per pax, it came up to about RM95 total.

I only paid RM40 with voucher for Tiara Melaka and the experience was about the same.

A-Famosa’s price is definitely not cheap, but is it worth it? We’ll see.

First thoughts

A Famosa is famous for another thing: Crocodiles. In Malay, it’s called ‘Buaya’. It’s also a slang in golf. To call someone a Buaya is to call him a Hustler. Golfers are a strange lot. There are some who gives the impression that they play worse than your grandmother, and then fishes you a few holes until you up the stake to take advantage of this grandmother, and he finishes you off from there. Buayas always leave it to subtlety…they will beat you by a stroke, or by making an impossible shot, but they will Always. Beat. You.

So anyways, those are the human buayas. A Famosa actually houses a bunch of crocodiles on Hole 7, Crocodile Nine. In fact, it became infamous when a story circulated around that one of the golfers was suing A Famosa after being attacked by a croc. As you can imagine, to all Crocodile Dundee Fans, this was a boon to us, so when I made my way there (not this time, my previous time) I expected to have alligator meat for dinner.

True there are crocs there, but they are all in a deep enclosure just beyond the green, and there was no one on earth a croc could escape unless it flew. Yet, according to the report here: http://www.mmail.com.my/content/30648-crocodile-attack-victim-im-happy-be-alive, this man was assaulted by one of the man eating crocodiles. I don’t know how it is possible, but as a golfer to a golfer, we are more than happy to take money from golf clubs…and RM43k can certainly buy you a lot of golf clubs and games! And it’s pretty obvious from the picture, that Hong (the victim) is still playing golf, judging by his clothes (he probably just finished a round) and by the unnatural darkness of our natural Chinese yellow skin.

Whether what really happened was true or not, I’ll need to commend Hong for the herculean feat of ‘prying’ the crocodile’s mouth open with his hands. I don’t think it’s a croc, because a Croc’s bite force is 83% of the bite force of a full grown Tyranasaurous Rex. If Hong can escape from 2 tons of bite force, he is Super-Man. But an Alligator is still half the bite force of a croc, at 2000 pounds-force, which is roughly 7 times the bite force of a full grown, crazy, rabid Rottweiler Hound. Hong is Cicak Man, definitely. He must be driving the ball 400 meters of something.

Anyway, congratulations to Hong for the win in court settlement…we’ll see if A Famosa suffered for losing RM40K by not maintaining their course.

Service ( 2/5)

The problem in many cases for Malaysian golf is simply this: Our service SUCK. There’s no two ways about it. First, finding the villa was crazy. We thought we need to register at the villa right? So we drove around looking for signs to lead us, and found none. We asked a guard, he said register at the clubhouse. We drive all the way back (in a convoy mind you), and the club house says, no, you go to the villa and register. I mean, who trains these guys?

Caddies? Sigh. I love Melaka, but their caddies in all the clubs are just crazy useless. First, we were forced to take two caddies per flight. TWO! WHY?? Why force us when we don’t want?? If they were good, we won’t mind. The tubby one we got was functional, but her reading was completely off. It was just ridiculously bad. After a few times, we gave up and just asked her to clean the clubs. The other caddy was even worse. She must think she was very desirable, because all she did was complain, about us getting her to go back and fetch clubs, or look for ball etc…the fact was she had looks of a mongoose and we were this close to clubbing her and dumping her body into a bunker.

Why do we pay for these hopeless caddies? Is it to recover back the RM40K that Hong won? Can you share the winnings, Hong?

Fairways ( 2/5)

For the price we paid, the fairways were not in a good shape. In some parts, especially the par 5 4^th, the baldness of the fairway was very obvious and compared to Tiara Melaka, which had a mat like fairway that day, this was just an insult.  Justifiably, some fairways were still ok, but not good enough to get out of a pathetic 2/5divots.

Greens ( 3/5)

Our games in Melaka started at Tiara Melaka: Super fast greens. Then Orna: OK greens. A Famosa: SUPER SLOW. I don’t know why. I’d like to think it’s because of the morning dew. Or maybe we didn’t really eat breakfast, but throughout the game, it was just slow slow slow. It’s not a bad thing in itself, no, but the condition of the greens were also mediocre, so we’re giving it an ok rating here.

Rough ( 2/5)

The rough wasn’t really kept properly. An unnatural amount of leaves seemed to have descended upon the entire course, and especially the back nine we played on, was spent simply looking for balls that meandered just a little bit off line. Bunkers were the normal Malaysian style, hard packed bunkers…the ones you used either your PW or your LW to whack out, instead of your sand-wedge.

Aesthetics ( 4/5)

If there’s one thing that Hong didn’t take away from A-Famosa with the 40K, it’s the looks. Crocodile nine was unfortunately closed, so we ended up playing on the Rockies and also the Palm. We kicked it off at the Palm and immediately faced with the daunting task of water left, bunkers right. It’s a tough tee off for sure, and with the adjacent 9 hole green, flights teeing up on the other nine would be scrutinized closely at their tee off by busybody putters on the ninth. The palm course is actually very pretty. It’s a pity my game was not. After tripling the relatively easy 11^th by losing my ball, I parred the elevated 12^th hole and then descended into such darkness that I have never seen before. 13^th, 14^th and 15^th went by in a blur as I dumped into water on the picturesque and challenging 13^th, where a good drive requires a ballsy 2^nd shot into a green fronted by water; I continued to mess up 14^th when a pitch out went into the woods, and messed up the 15^th with some amazingly retarded display of a golf swing. I didn’t really get to enjoy the scenery but the par 5 17^th is worth a look. A good drive over the hill and you see a tempting elevated green just opening up for you to try it on. If you slice it, you’ll be out in the open road, you pull it, and the heavy rough and trees on the left will swallow it. Certainly an interesting hole.

The last hole in the palm course is a hooker’s nightmare, reminiscent of hole 1. The approach to the green narrows down like a constipated colon, with greenside bunkers waiting impatiently for you to deposit one in, left, right, back.

The Rockies Nine starts with a dangerous par 4. If you drive too long, it rolls down into a meandering drain that splits the fairway. But I don’t think it warrants an index 1 rating, it’s not too tough. I blasted a good one, right to the edge, and an 8 iron in to set up my par. The 2^nd hole is a tough par 3, elevated to about 180 meters. The par 5 4^th is the one you see from the north south highway, and it’s just long. It’s like the evil twin of the par 5 17^th (in fact, both come to you at 524 meters!), and almost set up the same…a drive over the hill, and from there a good look down to a generous fairway and to an accessible green. It’s also a picturesque hole on the course, with nice villas next to it, no doubt collecting wild golf balls every day in their back yard.

The index 3 5^th should be the index 1. It’s just an horrifying looking hole, similar to 1 and 9 on Palm, but with an even thinner slip of fairway. Here was where I was sunk, after playing only +1 over 7 holes, I dipped into the water enroute to a double.

The final hole is a fitting end, a drive over a pond and to a very steep uphill green. It’s a tough hole to end, but still a very satisfying golf course. Now if only we can get rid of the annoying caddies.

Fun Factor ( 4/5)

No matter the lousy service or retarded pricing, A Famosa is fun to play. The course set up isn’t extremely excruciating, and it has enough character in every hole to keep things interesting. The undulating fairways aren’t unfamiliar to us, having played Orna the day before, but it has enough elevation in different holes to keep things interesting.

The front nine on palm was nightmarish for me however, but I was just in awe at a good friend of mine who switched to an R11, and completely obliterated the crap out of his golf balls. As in, hole 15, 393 meters, UPHILL, across a pond. He blasted it, cut the pond and get this, the ball was 90 meters away from the green. My good drive still had 160 or so to go. The next hole, he created a hole in the space time continuum after ripping apart his golf ball to—honestly, I was checking the distance markers—the 200 marker, on the 520meter par 5. I mean, he knocked it past the huge ROCK. I don’t know, A Famosa members, it’s awful far. I’m getting that for Christmas. Not the rock. The driver.

I suppose due to the undulations, depending on where the ball lands, it can probably add another couple of tens of meters forward, but you still can’t take away a good drive. For some reason, he drove like a Maserati but putt-putt-putted on the green like a Proton. So overall, it all balanced out.

Myself, the streakiness continues. +13 over first 6 holes. +1 over the next 7. I am just playing horrible in my first 5 holes for the past few games. Then I would inexplicably streak off 3 or more pars in the row before descending into the world of crap golf again. Sigh.

Conclusion

A famosa, with 3 nice nines is definitely worth a go. Palm is slightly prettier in my opinion but hookers will struggle a little, as evidenced in my hooking game. Both nines are reasonably open, and the Crocodile has the novelty of playing with the crocs, I’m sure every golfer will want to have a go with that. Distance wise, it’s not too bad…if you’re thinking of going to that devil of a course Seremban 3 Paradise Valley, I’d advice to suck it up and spend a few more minutes on the highway to head over to A Famosa. The service and caddy (unfortunately a normality in Malaysia) is still as good as a POW camp, and the price is still an evidence of the complete misdirection of their management; but overall A Famosa is a reasonably good bet for enjoyable golf. Now, if only they would also pay me RM40K for writing a nice review for them.

The good: Nearest of all the Melaka courses to KL; located right next to the highway is a good point; nice food around Seremban on the way back (this suddenly came to mind and became a very important factor); the course setup is interesting enough; Crocodile novelty for those who have never putted next to a real croc before.

The bad: Pricing is not very attractive, especially when you force buggies and unattractive, lazy caddies onto the flight; the services, while not abysmal, isn’t what you would expect from a quality golf club; the course condition wasn’t spectacular either; nice aesthetics; crocodile can bite your leg. Unless you are the Cicak Man. Then it becomes a good thing.

The skinny: 22 of 40 divots (55.0%). A Famosa could have been a lot better in the gila ranks, as it is, they just scrape in as a Not Too Shabby course, with plenty of room for improvement. I’d say go for it, but if price isn’t your thing, might just want to head to Tiara Melaka.

A Famosa ScoreCard

A Famosa Information

Address:

Jalan Kemus, Simpang empat,

78000 Alor Gajah, Melaka, Malaysia

Contact: +606-552 0888

Fax: NA

Website: http://afamosa.com

Email: customerservice@afamosa.com

Where as for us, Hackers, to say something doesn’t fit the eye is even more ridiculous, because (speaking for myself), I suck at this game. I don’t have a consistent swing or a predictable ball flight, or even a guarantee that I would be able to hit the dang ball…there is no way a course set up has any inkling to my game, because at times it flies left, at times it flies right, at times it doesnt make past the red tees.

But if I were to say a course that doesn’t ‘fit my cock-eye’, it’d be Kajang Hill. I don’t know what about it…I just suck more than usual playing this course!

We teed up on the first nine and I actually played very well…aside from starting the 3 holes like a monkey, I know why: The first hole, a good drive saw my ball plugged into the rough. Playing competition, no way I could get it out. Double. Second hole, pull near the trees. Instead of being in the bunker or at least on the ground…it was literally perched on the roots! It took 3 shots to get out!

The back nine…Oh gosh. I was 11 over 4 holes. I OB-ed the first 3 holes with massive pulls, and almost OB-ed the fourth when my ball was stuck under the ledge in a bunker. WHAT THE…after that, I played good golf, but my gosh, what a string of lousy first 3 holes in my nines!

And this is not the first time. Previous adventures in Kajang Hill yielded the same result…white tee, blue tee no difference. Blue I struggle with the length. White, I struggle with the accuracy, constantly blasting my ball over the fairway OB.

I’m not saying Kajang Hill sucks. It doesn’t…but it’s slowly degrading since nobody bothers about maitenance. It’s closing down end of this year due to housing development I believe. What a crap-shoot. I need to play one more time here to redeem my pride!

Typical of Malaysian service, there are hidden costs NOT advertised on the voucher. Here’s the breakdown for gilagolfers using this voucher to play in A Famosa Weekdays and Weekends (Gilagolf makes 0 profit on this, I assure you):

1) Weekdays

RM20 for voucher + RM77 for Buggy, Insurance and 1 Caddie = RM97

Normal Promotion Rate Weekdays: RM135

Savings: RM38.00 per person, RM152 per flight.

2) WeekEnds

RM20 for voucher + RM80 ‘weekend’ surcharge + RM69* for Buggy, Insurance and 1 Caddie = RM169

(*RM98 for buggy twin sharing + insurance, RM40 for caddy per buggy, so RM138 divided by 2 people=RM69)

Normal Promotion Rate Weekends: RM220

Savings: RM51.00 per person, RM204 per flight.

You still get reasonable savings but not as great as the marketing people would have you think. Email me for those interested, I have a bunch left.

@@@NOW ON TO THE RAMADHAN PROMOTIONS!@@@

Gilagolf wishes all our muslim readers and gilagolfers “Selamat Berpuasa” and “Selamat Menyambut Bulan Ramadan”. I always think it’s a little hypocritical to say that and yet, silently enjoy all the golf promotions and cheap rates we non-muslims get during this month, while my muslim golfing buddies are sidelined…so while this post is going to be a little cruel, I still think it’s pretty amazing for you guys to go through the month without golf. Actually I know one guy who did play golf with me but didn’t drink a drop of water till 7:30 pm…he almost died, I think, but said it was, “Worth it”. True Gilagolfer.

Anyways, for the benefit of my few readers, here are some of the Ramadan (or is it spelled Ramadhan?) Golf Promotions and Packages that I know of, in some of Malaysia’s Golf courses. Feel Free to add in your own or update!

Happy Hacking!

Glenmarie

RM105 – Weekdays

Verdict: Glenmarie doesn’t score well on Gilagolf mainly due to the awful discriminative service we experienced there. But maybe there’s a new crop of people there! And at RM105, it’s a GO!

Staffield

RM85 – Morning(Weekday)

RM88 – Afternoon (Weekday)

RM130 – Morning (Weekend)

RM133 – Afternoon (Weekend)

Verdict: Go For it! It’s Staffield! Weekend rates are a little steep. These fees are not inclusive of Caddies, which in my opinion suck in Staffield. Also, don’t mention a thing about their lousy service. But for Golf only: GO weekdays!

KGSAAS

RM110 with Ramadhan Buffet (Weekdays)

Verdict: It’s pretty worth it to play weekdays (weekends shoots up to 210++). And I think there’s night golfing as well, no? Maybe Go.

Impian Golf

Weekday 730 – 830 – RM98. After 830 – RM145

Weekday Afternoon – RM115

Weekend 830-915 – RM140

Weekend Afternoon RM155

Sunday Afternoon – RM90

Verdict: Sunday afternoon has always been a good price, and weekday rates are great too…but beware of hidden costs, like crap caddies. Maybe Go.

Bangi Golf

All the same price except we get RM30 food voucher. Hmm. No big deal. The Sunday promo RM100 still remains, but might as well play somewhere else for Ramadhan. NO GO.

KRPM

Weekday Monday and Tuesday – RM70 (morning)

Wed and Thurs – RM119 (morning)

Verdict: Not that great since one of the championship nines are closed Monday and Tuesday for maintenance. NO GO.

Seri Selangor

Weekdays – RM75

Weekend (Saturday Wholeday, Sunday Morning) – RM40 per person (need full flight)

I was right, too good to be true. Weekend, SS has come up with some convoluted pricing structure that’s not worth your time to figure out. It’s about RM130++ per person.

Verdict: I might be hearing it wrong but RM40 is ridiculously cheap for Saturday morning but that was what I was told. GO! (Only weekdays)

KGPA

Monday – RM60

Tuesday to Friday – RM70

Weekends Saturday – RM110 Morning, RM60 Afternoon

Weekends Sunday- RM110 Morning, RM70 Afternoon

Verdict: Great promotion here. GO!

Perangsang Golf

Weekdays – RM49

Weekends – RM90 (Sat and Sunday)

Verdict: Weekdays is very cheap. Weekends, you can probably search for better courses out there. GO! (weekdays)

Kajang Hill Golf

RM412 for weekdays (No Promotion)

Verdict: RM103 per person is the normal weekday price. I called up the club and asked for any promotion and was slammed with an emphatic NO! from a very rude lady. Kajang Hill is always what it is, a very mediocre golf course pretending to be a good one. Nice service too for cutt-throats. Kajang Hill sucks. NO GO!

Kinrara

Monday:RM65

Other Weekdays: RM75

Weekend: RM135 (morning), RM90 (Afternoon)

Verdict: All promotions come with a RM15 food voucher, so basically you’re paying RM15 less for the golf, which is great. GO!

Nilai Springs

Weekday – RM68

Weekend – RM150 (Morning), RM110 (Afternoon)

Verdict: Nilai is pretty nice but the weekend rates aren’t that good. Weekdays is ok, so it’s a GO!

Monterez Golf

Weekday – RM57

Weekend – RM96 (Morning) , RM60 (afternoon)

Verdict: Very nice promotion for a narrow course. The Sunday afternoons are especially attractive. It’s a GO!

Awana Golf

Weekday – RM64

Weekends – RM137.50

Verdict: Great Weekday pricing. Weekends are so so. Call to book and make sure course is not being maintained though. GO! (Weekdays)

Beringin Golf

Weekday – RM35

Weekends – RM80 (Morning), RM60 (Afternoon)

Verdict: Beringin has always been attractive in terms of pricing. The only problem is that the journey there feels like going to the centre of the earth. But when all else fails, Beringin is a GO! (for cheapskates like me)

Beruntung Golf

I just thought of putting the mother of all crap course Bukit Beruntung here. Apparently Beruntung feels that doing promotion is unnecessary due to its amazing prestige as the upper echelon of the Mother of all Crap golf course. So no Promo, weekday is RM70, weekend is RM100 as usual. I have to say NO GO, because you ain’t seen crap till you see Beruntung.

Tasik Puteri Golf

Weekday – RM63 (Morning), RM83 (Afternoon)

Weekend – RM113 (Morning), RM88 (12:30 – 1:30), RM103 (After 1:30)

Verdict: Good pricing for Weekdays and a small window of an hour on weekend afternoons that it goes for RM88. I don’t know why. But, by all means, GO!

Danau Golf

Weekday – RM58

Weekends – RM120

Verdict: Danau is a university course that is average or sub-average. With promo price of RM58, it’s probably quite worth it, but RM120 for weekends? That’s stupid. Forget it. Go!(Weekdays)

Templer Park

Weekdays: RM109.20

Weekends: Expensive

Verdict: I somehow think that with the Top Premier voucher, Templer is so much cheaper, and 109 on Weekday even with Promotion is too pricey to pay. I’m cheapskate, so it depends on you. Maybe Go.

Bukit Tinggi Golf (Berjaya Hills)

Weekdays: RM68

Weekends: RM98

Verdict: Bukit Tinggi has always been somewhat of a nightmare to us when we play there, but the promotions are actually pretty attractive. Plus, the weather there is cool! GO!

That’s all I know of. Gilagolfers, if you know of any ramadhan promotions in Malaysia Golf Courses, let me know!

Handicap:20

Gross: 99

Net: 79

Verdict: Pulling all the way into OB….

Handicap:20

Gross: 87

Net: 67

Verdict: Once the driver is sorted, everything works!

What Happened

Staffield has always been somewhat of a favourite to us. But after a horrendous customer service experience (see the reviewed write up here), we’re doubtful if we should ever return here. In fact, Staffield has been relegated from a Must Play course to a Not Too shabby, in the only measurement system that makes sense to all golfers: The GilaChart.

The course remains an excellent golf course, no doubt, but that doesn’t give the golf management a reason to treat their customers only slightly better than a pile of dog crap, and slightly lower than how you’d treat mosquitoes. To justify them, only the golf manager sucks actually, the rest of the service blokes are OK.

The first game was not as bad as it seems. My first triple was due to 2 duffed chip, possibly due to morning jitters and lack of breakfast. The two double bogeys came from bad 3 putts. Staffield’s greens remain enigmatic as ever. It’s in good condition, but the breaks and the undulation, as well as the speed really just gets the best of us. The caddy says 8.5 on the stimp, but I doubt she realises what that means at all. Greens were FAST!! I don’t know how 8.5 is supposed to roll but I always thought it was slow, because KRPM plays to about 8 and it’s as slow as traffic in Tun Razak at 5 pm during Ramadhan month.

The back nine first game was where everything collapsed. Triple on the 11th due to pulling into the water. From 13 to 17, a stretch of five holes, I pulled almost every tee shot, especially with the driver, and each pull landed me either behind trees, hazards, or OB, water. By the time I reached the green, I was four on, five on, flustered, red with rage and obviously about to tomahawk my new driver into the grave. The worst was the awesome 16th, marked as 160meters, but ridiculously under measured by Staffield. We each used 3 wood, and only one managed to clear the bunkers and on. I plopped mine, yet again into water. Staffield, that hole plays 180 or more. No way it’s 160!

The only good thing came on the last, when I hit a 3 wood from the fairway to 5 meters of the green, putted and almost sank in for eagle.

And once all the lessons were learnt, the second game, driving went from being as curly as Rory’s hair to straight as an arrow on the back nine, as I shot 42, an improvement of a massive 9 shots on my back nine. I played the 87 to a thoroughly enjoyable golf, hitting irons in, and birdieing the 5th from the fairway bunker. The final hole was a replica, my 3 wood about 8 – 10 metres away and barely missing the 4 foot birdie putt. Argh!

But overall, except for memories of lousy golf manager in Staffield, it was the best golf I’ve played in a long time.

Why I Sucked

Easy. The first game, the new Hibore XLS was pulling all the way. Couldn’t figure it out, until the last hole, when it all clicked. I was addressing it too closed and grip too strong, because the S9-1 was a slicer, so I had to compensate for the slice with these. Hi-Bore XLS is draw biased all the way, so after neutraling the face and going easier on the grip, balls started booming straight and long. My mind still plays tricks on me occasionally expecting the ball to curve left to right, but the driver did its job, 9 fairways, 6 GIRs.

Putter was hot and cold. I missed a lot of putts within 5 feet, but managed to also hit long putts here and there, like the 8 foot curler for birdie on the 5th.

Not So Sucked

The new driver sucked at first, but started becoming my best pal by the time I was done.

What to Work On

Really exciting to work with the new driver, looking forward to the next game! Hacking time!

Handicap:20

Gross: 93

Net: 73

Verdict: Finally, a good round at KRPM!

What Happened

The new swing has been coming together over the weeks…I’m a lot more confident hitting my 3 wood off the deck and hitting my driver. I now carry 2 drivers: my S9-1 Cobra for accuracy, and my old Hi Bore when I need to blast it. Kinda works. Kinda. But better to get a driver that does both, right? Great excuse to go shopping.

Anyways, remember those times when we see Tiger play horribly with his new swing and yet he keeps saying, “I am almost there, I feel good etc” and we think he’s on weed or something since he keeps shanking the ball? Now I get it…you can have a not so good score (like today) but yet know that you’ve played well and except for a few brain farts or stupid stunts you wanted to pull because no wager was on the table.

First nine was pretty controlled. Double bogey on 2nd was with a way ward pull, and on the 4th, I drove the ball and it reached the water again by bouncing off the cart path! So I 3 to the fringe, four on and two putted. The other double bogey was on the tough index 1 when I hooked into the woods.

Back nine, again, I drove the ravine and failed to clear. But after 3 pars straight, the game kinda collapsed a little with triple on the tough 14th–I pushed into the trees and couldn’t escape alive–and the easy 15th, after dunking my ball into the water and 3 putting like an idiot.

The last 3 holes were the toughest, and I hit a drive that again hit the cart path but this time ended up 110 metres from the hole, which I proceeded to fat my pitching and waste a good chance to par the tough hole. 17th was just a stupid mess, because lying 220m I just tried my luck with my 3 wood to clear the water, about 190 – 200 to clear. I can do that about 1 out of 300 times probably….and today wasn’t the time. Normally I would have laid up but what the heck, I only play so often without a wager, so lets try the impossible. I still escaped with a double so it was ok I guess.

Last hole, I actually lost my first ball with a slice with my Hi Bore. Bye Bye HiBore, no more use for you then! My third off the tee with my cobra was fine, then hit a pure 3 wood to 80 metres from the hole. And a so-so sand wedge to about 25 feet, on one of the toughest contoured greens in KRPM. From the top tier, I watch my putt roll, hit the hump and curled all the way in for the one of the finest feeling in life….a long, curling putt on a multi tiered green. Ah.

Why I Sucked

Probably I was half-serious but that’s a bad excuse. If I hadn’t tried some stupid stunts, I would have probably scored better. But the driver was working fine…my KPI these days is to hit 50% fairways and 5 or more GIRs. My putter was hot, so the only issues were my iron plays again that sucked. Definitely not Iron Man.

Not So Sucked

Putter hot. Driver S9-1 was hot. Hi Bore was unfortunately crap. Time to get the One Driver to rule them all.

What to Work On

Waiting for the new driver to arrive. Should be fun!

Handicap:20

Gross: 97

Net: 77

Verdict: Getting there, could have been a lot better

What Happened

So, armed with a new swing, and two drivers now instead of one, I tried a round at my old friend KRPM Lakes….and although the result seems crappy, it was actually a good bad round if there is such a thing. Teeing up the back nine, my drive almost crossed the ravine. Drop for 3, stuck a 3 wood to the fringe, duff a chip and two putted. On the easy 11th, took out a driver and hit it so hard it went into the lake at 220m. Drop for 3, 4 on two putt. 12th, pulled my six, duffed another chip and 3 on two putted. On the easy par 4 13th, it’s easier now, with the huge tree chopped down, opening up the tee shot immensely. By habit, we all hit our ball right nevertheless. I had a good lie, in the rough, but jammed my wedge shot twice into the tree, and four on two putted.

So without actually hitting a bad drive, I managed to double bogey the first four holes! The last three holes are traditionally the toughest, and played that way, en route to a 51 on the front. Thanks to some really stupid 3-wood shots. However, I played a lot better on the back and didn’t mess up until the last hole, when I sliced my second shot hybrid to the bushes on the right and couldn’t get up and down. Otherwise, believe it or not, I was driving solid. It’s just too short to tackle Rahman Putra.

I’ll probably need to look for a replacement driver that is accurate and long. Ebay, here I come!

Why I Sucked

Chipping and pitching was off and on. Weirdly, the two pars I got was from my PW pitches. But countless duffs and tops is really annoying the heck out of my game.

Also, I changed putters again, and obviously didn’t work very well especially my front nine.

And the 3-wood, for some reason killed me, as I topped several shots especially on the closing holes on the front nine.

Not So Sucked

Driver. Or rather, Drivers. Like the tubby Phil Mickleson, I have now jammed two drivers into my bag. The Cobra with the whippy shaft cheated to me by that unprofessional MST guy, and me being the bigger idiot to listen to MST salesman–and my ancient HiBore…which honestly is so long, it’s ridiculous. It just can’t fly straight and the sweet spot is so tiny! The Cobra flies with a fade and reaches the upper stratosphere, and pops down with almost no roll, about 200m or less, but it’s straight.

What to Work On

Chipping and pitching, and stop being such a epileptic chimpanzee 50 meters into the green.

Handicap:20

Gross: 90

Net: 70

Verdict: Finally, a good round put together!

What Happened

Tiara Melaka has always been somewhat of a good hunting ground. There are just certain golf courses that ‘fits’ the eye, and this particular one is. We teed off from the Lakes and immediately, the comfort level was evident. While in Orna I was hitting 10 of 14 fairways, but still found hybrids and long irons into the green, the shorter holes in Tiara Melaka allowed a lot of mid to short irons into the greens, and made a huge difference. I hit half the fairways, but those I missed, were generally still ok, as evidenced by 9 of 18 GIRs, possibly my highest ever. Unfortunately, I three putted two of the GIRs, if not, it would have been an even better score.

Possibly the best shot I’ve hit is at the Index 4 Par 4 11th, to a highly inaccessible tabletop green, elevated from the fairway. I carved a six iron that drew in, and stuffed to 8 feet of the cup. I missed the birdie but that was the best shot I’ve hit in a long long while. Please allow me to brag as I will probably never get another chance to do so. Thanks.

Does anyone notice the par 3 16th at lakes is a carbon copy of the famous par 3 12th at the Augusta? It’s almost the same, with flowerbeds past the green, and a sloping bunker behind, water in front, two towering trees standing guard to the side. I just noticed it. I think it’s cool that Tiara has a little Augusta in it and Orna has a little TPC Sawgrass in it’s par 3 12th. Good work, Melaka Golf!

The only mistake on the front was when I deposited my tee shot into the drink on the 17th. I couldn’t scramble and collapsed to a triple, and lost the game wager there.

Back nine, on the much more difficult Woodlands, I started with a Birdie-Par to give me visions of breaking 80 for the first time. But the horrendous third did me in as I OB-ed my drive, dunked my third into the water, stuffed in my fifth and two putted for triple. After that, it was simply survival mode golf again and my pars all ran out. Woodlands is a lot tougher and reminiscent to the Ayer Keroh holes, surrounded by scary jungle and ball eating roughs. The awesome par 5 4th , index 1, at 506m seemed never ending, as it played uphill all the way, adding at least 50m to it’s difficulty.

Still, pretty promising results to recent swing changes, at least hitting a lot more fairways now.

Why I Sucked

I think it’s one of the better games I’ve played, despite not breaking 90. The back nine was just a few mistakes here and there, bad putting, but overall, the 3-wood and driver came together. Chipping remains an issue, as I’m actually waiting for the return of my beloved 48 degree and 60 degree which I left behind in Permaipura, and I’m currently using a heavy 60 degree Cleveland and my normal PW for chipping. I’m not very good at the first place, and now suck even worse.

Short irons was way better now…the birdie on the 1st came from a SW from the rough, stuffed to 5 feet of the hole.

Not So Sucked

Driver and 3-wood. Wish my hybrid was working as well, but no complaints. Also, sorted my short irons a little, but long irons remain a problem. The strange thing about golf is that on the front nine when I played so well, my partner and I actually lost the game wager and we won on the back nine. Go figure.

What to Work On

I’m still not confident that the driver and 3-wood are good enough, it will probably revert back to its crap status the next game; but slowly the game is coming together. Work on chips and long irons next.

Melaka has always been somewhat of a hidden gem for Malaysia Golf Courses. For such a small state, it boasts of 4 well known courses in Ayer Keroh, A Famosa, Tiara Melaka and Orna Golf Club. There’s also one more obscure one called Golden Valley course which is along the highway, which we don’t really know anything about.

And of course, the great thing about Melaka is that the courses are all located within Bubba Watson Drive from each other (meaning within 300 – 400 meters, give and take. We obviously failed our maths, but it sounds nice: Bubba Drive). With each courses so close, organizing a 36 hole blitz is a piece of cake. Orna – Tiara Melaka – Ayer Keroh are options. A Famosa is a little out of the way though.

We decided on Orna simply because many of us have not played there before, and from the website (again, we say with some caution, having experience the inordinate amount of BS encountered in these so-called websites), they seem to be a little full of themselves, having served as the Davidoff qualifying school venue for 2001 – 2003, which until now, I can only relate to Davidoff as the deodorant I put in my armpits every morning. At least, it isn’t as full of crap as some of the information on some golf club sites; this actually served to be quite informational. I won’t repeat it here, but the designer is Andy Dye, the brother, I believe of Pete Dye. Now if you haven’t heard of Pete Dye, you probably heard of the famous course he designed: The TPC Sawgrass. If you haven’t heard of it, you probably know about the famous 17^th on the Stadium Course. If you haven’t, you should just give up golf, wear a tutu and take up ballet instead, because you’ll be very good at it.

While Andy ain’t Pete, we still were pretty excited nonetheless to try out this so-called ‘championship quality’ course.

Travel (2/5)

Like the notorious Tiara Melaka, signs leading to the golf course is as scarce as blue spotted jackals.  For some reason, perhaps due to it being a national heritage, Melaka refuses to put signs up to direct tired golfers coming from KL to Tiara or Orna, or perhaps those cheapskate clubs refuse to pay the Melaka town board to put these signs up. So you need to trust your instinct, or now, in this time and age, the good old GPS.

Turn off the Ayer Keroh exit, if you’re coming down from KL. Please tell me that you know how to get to the North South Highway bound for JB and Singapore. If you don’t, perhaps you should ask your mother’s permission for reading stuff on the internet, and go back to studying for your Std 3 tests. I’m kidding. This is a family friendly blog. But I am still not gonna direct you to the North south since it’s obvious you don’t know how to drive.

Anyways, once you’re off, go past the toll and head straight on, until you see the zoo and the Ayer Keroh golf course on your left. Then stay left, and at the main interchange, turn left, go straight all the way, past Tiara Melaka Golf Course on your left, and about 2 km later, Orna is there for you!

Price (4/5)

RM59 per person. Yep. There’s a promotion and yet again, our stupid Top premier voucher booklet is useless, since it’s more expensive with the voucher. Although it’s a dumb pricing strategy, it’s still a ridiculously low price to pay for a round of golf (later, we found from Tiara Melaka, with the voucher is only RM44!! Man, I love MELAKA!). This is good pricing, but then again, RM59 for a piece of cowdung in the middle of nowhere, like TUDM or Frasers might make you wish you invested that RM59 into buying discarded bottle caps instead. As we found out later, thankfully, Orna does not resemble a piece of dung, so it’s definitely worth the price.

First thoughts

I don’t really know what ORNA means, but I suppose it’s supposed to be some Greek sounding name for beauty or something. In my opinion, it’s probably derived from the desperate shouts of golfers who are trying to clear water, bunkers, wastelands in this course to put it on the green: “ON! ON –AH!!” with the ‘ah’ colloquially used by chinamen uncles who think they can clear 230 m of water to put 2-on to the par 5 greens, and failing miserably for the 4,567^th time.

Anyways, we teed it up on the back nine (West Course). We avoided the mickey mouse North Course (as was told to us) and decided the championship combination of East and West course was where the bang for the buck was.

Standing on the first tee, it was a short par 4 that had a slight dogleg right. Immediately, you can see the undulations on the fairway, and know that this is NOT a Ginnifer Course, and it’s probably going to eat you up the way KRPM eats up golfers, gargles their blood and spits out the carcass later.

Service (3/5)

Not much experience with the service, except our buggy was awful and we needed to ‘Flintstoned’ our way (using our legs to help move the vehicle) in the last couple of holes. As there were no living souls in the course except for our flight and probably one or two more, we didn’t have any congestion as well, except for the first few holes when this couple took their own sweet time, and played as if they were just waiting for rapture to come. We’ll give a middle score for this one.

Fairways (2/5)

From a far the fairway looks to be in a pretty shape. But on closer inspection, you’ll find it in a below average state, mostly evidenced by the infamous bald spots. Sparsely growing, the Bermuda fairway was mostly pockmarked by sandy spots here and there. On the regular turf without the bald mark, the Bermuda grass was just HARD. As in, for habitual diggers like myself, I end up bouncing back up the grass and turn my ball right to left with a closed face. At least that is what I think. It usually happens in a blink of an eye, and before I know it, my poor golf ball is skittering away to the left into the drink. And ORNA punishes a lot of right to left misses, due to some ridiculous undulation. You will probably never get a flat stance in Orna, so your iron game better come prepared.

Greens (2/5)

Like the fairways, it wasn’t that the greens started out bad, but simply because of the lack of maintenance. Bald spots littered almost all the greens, speed was inconsistent, sometimes slow, sometimes faster (but still slow!), and while the undulation and breaks were fun; still, the lack of maintenance really annoyed us. Another thing, and this has nothing to do with the ratings; don’t even think about putting off the green. I usually practice that, if there’s about a meter of grass to clear before the green, I’d putt it. I’ve done that in other courses, in Rahman Putra cow grass even, and it works. Not in Saujana. And now, definitely not in Orna. The grass around the green literally catches the ball and chokes the spin out of it and spins the ball away from the targeted line. Again, this is more of a characteristic than a feature, but the greens themselves offer an underwhelming experience for us hackers.

Rough ( 3/5)

We spent an inordinate amount of time in the rough. This is primarily due to the undulating fairways, and as well as the gigantic bunkers sprinkled liberally over the course. The rough was generally ok, it wasn’t very difficult to escape from it, but Orna’s bunkers are really a feature itself, and offered some very interesting challenges. Starting from hole 10^th, you need to navigate across twin bunkers on the fairways and fronting the green. Even on the par 5 11^th, a sandy stretch of bunkers await the wayward hooker on their approach to the green. The index 2 14^th is a monstrous par 4 at almost 400 meters, but with a Sarlac sized bunker smack in the middle of the fairway, which one of our unfortunate hacker managed to find enroute to a triple bogey. This is an extremely testing par 4, with a driver and 3 wood to barely find the front of the green.

Again the par 4 15^th also has a gigantic greenside bunker which took our guys 2 – 3 shots to extricate.

By now, we had the grim feeling that while water was more or less a feature for Orna, the bunkers were the real culprit to high scores. And nothing is more distinct that the GARGANTUAN strip of bunker found in the par 5 16^th, at the side of the water. It’s almost 100 meters long and I had the misfortune of slamming into it with my second shot hybrid, and could only get out in 3 to six on and two putt for a triple. Yikes. The ending holes are memorable, with each having strips of bunker hugging the water, and as you will see later, has an impressionable aesthetic.

The issue is that the bunkers are not very well maintained. In fact, playing into the 8^th par 3 and landing into the bunker, my second shot skulled the ball due to the HARD mud under the sand. My third dug too shallow and popped the ball into the water on the par 5 preceeding hole. Drop for fifth, two putted for a quadruple bogey and lost the game. This wasn’t a one-off…lots of the bunkers were in need of proper maintenance. If you’re hitting from Orna’s bunkers, be careful of the hard mud underneath, it’s death to most hackers.

Aesthetics ( 3/5)

Orna is one of those courses where you hate it or love it. The one thing good about the aesthetics is that it really offers an open course for you to view. And we’re very partial to such a view, with the undulating fairways, undulating greens, and bunkers spread around the course, you can really look and say the design is quite nice, given what they had to work with. Especially nice (as long as you avoid it) are the bunker strips around the lakes, and from some good elevated tee boxes, it was an enjoyable view.

And of course, the signature hole 12^th on the West Course, a’la the 17^th at Sawgrass, Andy Dye copies his brother and gives us the closest resemblance. This is the island green very similar to the one in Sawgrass, a 157 m shot from the blue tee to green. Standing on the tee shot, the whole conversation will surround on the key question: “Eh, what iron you use ah?”. In fact, we like this hole so much, we’re gonna give an aerial shot from the recently launched Gilagolf satellite camera.

So aesthetic wise, there’s much to enjoy…until the weather gets the better of you. The advantage becomes a disadvantage when you hit the 10 am – 12 noon stretch because Orna is HOT. Barely any mature trees surrounding the course, it becomes a killer at the final holes, when you play that stretch of index 7,9,3, 11 and 5 on the east course. And mind you, that index 11 is a elevated 170 m tee shot to a small green with water fronting and that Sarlac bunker waiting to chomp your (golf) balls. So that stretch is really a tough one. If only Orna had managed to keep some trees before chopping all of them down, it would actually be quite a beautiful looking course, especially the design itself is worth mentioning. I don’t know why there are so many mature trees in Tiara Melaka next door or Ayer keroh golf course down the road, but Orna has almost none.

So bring LOTs of water, because you’re going to a fried duck by the time you are done with Orna.

Fun Factor ( 3/5)

The start of the game was quite fun. We hit the west course, and getting past hole 10 and 11, we reached the famed 12^th, the copycat of TPC Sawgrass and played good shots in. An eight iron should actually suffice, but it’s just that the water really psychos you.

The fairways are reasonably generous, but slicers do beware, many of the holes have OB right, so take a healthy aim to the left…except that the undulation often bounces your ball into the water or Sarlac bunkers.  The undulating fairways are also another feature to deal with. Depending on where your ball lands, you can either get another 30-40 m roll or a -5 meter roll, as you watch in anger as it hits the upslope of the undulation and rolls pathetically back. And also, the undulation slopes towards the hazards, and in more than one occasion, notably the par 4 10^th, where slight draw of the ball lands on the wrong side of the slope and it will bound merrily into the waiting water.

In fact, there’s probably not one spot in the course where you’ll find an even lie, so it truly will test your skill, patience and resistance to start chopping your 7-iron into the fairway and howl in anguish.

The East Course plays shadier, but by then the heat had really gotten to us so much so that we’ve had mirages of Oompaloompahs serving us ice cold Coke and ice-cream chocolate cakes on each green. A notable hole is the horrendous par 5 7^th, which demands a good tee shot, and another to the landing area before an accurate to the elevated green.

The course does have character in each of the holes, but I swear as I was chopping out of the largest bunker in the world on the par 5 16^th, I’d think some golfers probably didn’t make it out of the bunker alive and had been buried there for posterity’s warning.

Was Orna fun? In part due to the design and undulation. But the lack of shade, trees and the exposure to the sun feels like we’ve just landed in the Sahara and by the last few holes, just couldn’t wait to get our sun-baked bodies into the clubhouse.

Conclusion

As mentioned, there is a love it or hate it feeling for Orna. Some liked the challenge and the undulation and the bunkers, while others probably would want to avoid such torture and sadistic course in the future. For me, the driving was doing fine, as I hit 10 fairways. But with only 2 GIRs, it really brings to pressure the approach shots,  and putting (both my GIRs, I three putted for bogeys). Undulation and bunkers really do play a huge part in Orna, and it’s definitely not an easy course to play in, unlike the neighbouring, friendly Tiara Melaka. It suffers from the lack of maintenance, but it’s a course I wouldn’t mind playing on again.

The good: Pricing is a big advantage, with RM59, it’s worth the travel; undulating greens, fairways add to the challenge of gigantic, Sarlac bunkers; the island green 12^th is worth playing for the closest resemblance of TPC Sawgrass 17^th; interesting “Mr Dye” design worthy of it’s boast as a championship looking course.

The bad: Maintenance is lacking, causing the fairway to be as hard as tarred road; bunkers will be unavoidable, but it’s densely packed with mud under the sand; without trees, after a while, those Oompaloompahs with coke will hopefully get to you before you collapse in dehydration and carted away to the Melaka hospital.

The skinny: 22 of 40 divots (55%). Orna faces the challenge of the nearby Ayer Keroh and Tiara Melaka, but it stands on its own. It doesn’t force idiotic caddies on you the way Ayer Keroh does, and the character of the course is definitely different from the much friendlier Tiara Melaka. And of course, the bunkers and undulation gives it a distinct feel and personality. If only it wasn’t so dang hot, it would have been a great recommendation. As it is, we’re a little on the fence; love it or hate it, there are some holes you definitely will have fun in, so it’s a recommendation if you haven’t tried it yet. After that, it’s up to you whether to return or not!

Orna GCC  East + West Course

Orna GCC Information

Address: Batu 16, Jalan Gapam,
Ladang Gapam, Bemban 77200 Jasin,
Melaka, Malaysia.

Contact: +606-5210333

Fax: +606-5210222

Email: ogcc@ornaresort.com.my

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