Wow, it’s been some time since we reviewed a course, and even longer that we’ve gone out of KL! So the opportunity came to play at Damai Laut GCC in Lumut, Perak, we snapped it up. Being the city brats we are, we have absolutely no idea where on earth is this Damai Laut located, but being the gila golfers, we readily took the challenge to go and hack it. Also, the hole 15, their signature hole. We like to play at courses that people talk about, and in this case, the course had quite a lot of prestigious sounding awards:

1. 3^rd most scenic course by Golf Malaysia 2005/2006.
2. Hole #15 – second most scenic hole in Malaysia
3. Hole #13 – third in Par Golf Super 18 Malysia Award.

With pedigree like that, you can’t go wrong can you? Damai Laut we go!!

Travel (2/5)

Now, let’s make this clear. Traveling to Damai Laut is SHEER TORTURE. But this is really a difficult category to judge because it’s very subjective how we view traveling individually. How did we give Datai Bay 3, when we had to take a bloody flight and drive halfway across the island? We measured it from where we were staying. Likewise, we’ll need to be fair in this. Nobody in their right mind will travel all the way to Damai Laut, play golf, and come back. We need to measure it from where we stayed, at Swiss Garden. In this case, it was right next door, but we’ll refrain from giving it a 5 because the resort is so ridiculously out of the way, it’s as if the hotel management wanted to start their own little country at the edge of Perak.

In fact the instructions to get to this forsaken place is so darn long, it warrants its own page for you to get through , and hopefully without falling asleep.

Driving from South Malaysia: http://www.damailaut.com/driving01.html

Driving from North Malaysia: http://www.damailaut.com/driving02.html

Crazy. Here’s the map.

We took the Bidor exit, but there are several ways to get there. The stupid thing is that there’s a place called Damar Laut. I think it’s a fake copy of the real Damai Laut. It’s unbelievable that there would be people out there that think this is a great idea. It’s like calling your son Tiger Wooks and get him to pose in red shirt and Nike Cap, and paint his face black. What’s the idea? If you ain’t Woods, you ain’t him! Damar Laut folks, what’s the deal??!

Unless you are a crazy person, refrain from driving there, play golf and coming back. From PJ, it took us 5 hours to get there. Umm, ok, we stopped and ate. A lot. Who cares? It’s a freaking long trip!

Price (3/5)

Unlike the published rates on the website, they gave us RM150 for all in, because we were guests at the Swiss Garden Resort, and because (we suspect), they have only gerbils to entertain the staff for the past 6 months. The course was like walking into a post apocalyptic world, like “I am Legend”. Beautiful, yet hauntingly empty.

We like the fact that even though it was quite a lot to pay for the weekday, at least they refrained from cutting our throats. They could have charged RM200 and we would have been forced to play, having traveled so far.

First thoughts

We packed 4 flights and zoomed off for an afternoon tee off, under the blazing hot sun. But being at the coast, a nice wind came up and it was certainly very, very refreshing to stand on the first tee, a blind hole that drops to the green, and even more so, when my first ball carved into a nice draw and rolled 250 meters down the fairway.

Damai Laut is HOT, not in the wow, she’s hot HOT, but the darn, I think I am gonna die, HOT. We played the first 9 as dry as dry can be and that’s why we were blasting our tee shots prodigiously. The turn, rain set in, and the wind whipped up so it was quite a good experience, to play Damai Laut dry, and then in British Open condition.

Service (1/5)

Now, I know they don’t really have a lot of guest that will come all the way to play the course, which makes it even more important to service us! We arrived at the club house, we had to take our bags from the car, and after waiting a while at the front and it became evident no living thing will greet us and take our bags in for us, we lugged our stuff all the way in. Come on, Damai Laut, you can do better than this. If you advertised your great service, how about giving us some respect and helping us out? At least in Datai, they really made you feel as if you are the king of the world (or the king of stupidity to pay RM350 for a game), but hey, at least. This gets a stingy 1 from gilagolf, because of their stingy service.

Fairways (4/5)

Like we mentioned earlier, we had a chance to test the course on both conditions: extremely dry and windy wet. I obviously preferred playing it dry because the ball runs and never stops. In my first 9, for those shots that caught the fairway, I never had a drive under 250 meters. It was highly entertaining. The fairways were a little patchy in some parts, but overall it played very very well. And even when wet, drainage was good, and it held up very well. Again, it’s a little short of perfect because the maintenance wasn’t as pristine as say Datai or Tropicana, but it’s among the best we played.

Greens (2/5)

Unfortunately the good feeling didn’t last, and we watched in dismay as Damai Laut’s greens fell hopelessly short of the condition expected in a premium course. Even on the first hole, one of my partners remarked with obvious distaste, “Why so sandy one?!?!”. It wasn’t as bad as Selesa (which to us is not a golf course, but a pile of junk that makes us prefer to eat live cockroaches than to play there again), but as one of the premier courses in Malaysia, we expect at least a little consistency in its greens. Nope what we had was sandy greens and in one hole, the par 5 5^th, I had to almost chip with my putter to coax the ball uphill across the green with the amount of sand. A very disappointing 2.

Rough (3/5)

The rough wasn’t that much better. Several times I went into the rough and it’s not difficult enough to hit it out. Instead, a few times, the rough was so forgiving, it sat up like on a tee, allowing me to scramble for par the 2 times I missed the fairway on my front nine. We’re a strange breed. We complain that the rough is too tough and the rough is not too enough. The second 9 played slightly harder because as the rain came, our ball settled easier into the rough and boy, we struggled a bit.

Aesthetics (3/5)

OK, this is where we have the MOST gripe about. For the 3^rd most scenic course in Malaysia, we’ll have to conclude that whoever did the poll was either secretly blind, or he was treated to 10 years free massage in Swiss Garden Resort. Because it’s nowhere near as pretty as Datai, or even Impiana or Meru. It’s probably thereabouts with Tiara Melaka or something, but there was just no wow factor, that made us go, well, WOW! We all expected the next hole to be better, and then the next hole, and then the next hole. But as we went along, it was evident, this was no Pebble Beach or Pinehurst. Being a coastal golf course, we expected a lot more. Even the darn scorecard promised a beautiful scenery and we all thought, ok, Hole #15 is simply going to blow our minds away.

We finally reached hole #15 and I went, “This can’t be right.” The tee box was next to the lake, which is green like milk tea, and all I saw was a dogleg right and some kids playing. That’s right. Kids. They just popped up from no where and played this signature hole and disappeared later. So we waited and mulled, “Is this the legendary 2^nd most scenic hole in Malaysia?” “Are we too stupid to appreciate it?” From there, a hooked drive caused my ball to jump into the left rough and as we drove nearer, the beauty slowly unfolded.

It’s no big deal.

One, the picture on the scorecard is fake. The ocean is photoshopped into the card. The real hole #15 is nothing like it. The hole drops drastically to the green, but it’s not something we’ve never seen before. The sea is behind the green, but it’s not the open sea, it has Pangkor island listlessly sitting in the background. A ship was docked near the bay, blocking whatever beauty that was left, and adding to the disappointment of it all.

Golf Malaysia really screwed up on this one. I think they didn’t even come here to play. I think they were just sent a photoshopped picture, or the scorecard and in the letter told, “Nice hole, free massage for good reviews.”. In fact, we preferred the Hole #13 par 3, surrounded by bunkers.

We were so disappointed with this mythical 2^nd most scenic hole, we played 4-5 balls each from the top of the hill into the green, like a driving range.

Fun Factor (4/5)

Despite Damai Laut’s fading into mediocrity, and the obvious disappointment of us all, that we drove all the way to play a course that resembles Nilai Springs or something, we still managed to have fun. One playing partner birdied the 2^nd and did a jig that must be censored for the innocence of our sight. Perhaps we were all in a relaxed holiday mood and the weather was nice for the first 9. Whatever the reason, I went into a hot streak parring my first 6 holes, before dropping one at the 7^th. On the 8^th, I hit one of my best drive ever that hit the hill and rolled to about 30 meters away from the green, a 320 meter drive. Being so full of myself, I stupidly duffed my pitch, hit an embrassing chip and humiliated myself by missing my par putt.

On the very next hole, the 9^th, it’s a drivable par 4 at 280 meters. You had to carry about 200 meters of water uphill, and on top of that, navigate your shot over the trees. The bail out was on the left, but already boiling over my previous hole, I hit another cracker that missed the trees by a few millimeters and flew long and straight to the fringe of the green. Again, full of myself, I proceeded to run my eagle putt 6-7 feet by and miss the come back putt. At that time, I was ready to dunk my whole head into the ball cleaner in the buggy. It’s a cool thing, it cleans your dirty balls. Golf balls, that is.

I scored a 38, that could have been a 36. Could have, would have should have. I’ve hit all except 2 fairways, 4 greens in regulations, drove the green at number nine and playing superbly. This was my day to break 80 and celebrate the milestone.

Back 9, I started with a par, and then it all unraveled. I started hooking, I started dunking my balls in the water, I started to three putt. As good as my front 9 was, I played like a cow on the back 9. At 42, it’s actually a good score, but here was my stats: 3 3-putts that could have got me pars, 0 fairways hit. Bogey after bogey, until I needed a birdie to break 80 on the index 2 last hole, a snaky par 5 at 520 meters. My drive borrowed fairway of the next hole, but I recovered to have a 10 foot try for birdie.

It turned at the last moment agonizingly and I settled for an 80, my best score ever, but like all golf scores, a story of missed opportunities. Every dog will have its day, and my day will come.

Conclusion

Damai Laut is really a nice course. That’s it. It’s not supposed to be a nice course. With so many awards, we were expecting this baby to break into the DAGTH category but instead, watched its stock fall lower and lower to a disappointing 60%. Will we play it again? Sure, if they transport the whole dang course to somewhere more accessible! For now, the staff will be stuck with their gerbils until the next batch of tourist golfers come by the resort.

The good: Easy drive from the resort; well conditioned fairways; interesting holes (9^th, 13^th); reachable par 5s and par 4s for one ons; able to get a crack at your best scores here due to forgiveness.

The bad: Hellish drive from anywhere else; service non existent, unless you are a gerbil; disappointing greens and rough; by far, the hole #15 is more disappointing than seeing the most beautiful girl in your high school turn into a pimply dumpling at the reunion.

The skinny: 24 of 40 divots (60%). We will definitely play again if we ever end up in Swiss Garden Resort, which is as much a certainty as seeing a pack of hyenas do a cha-cha with a herd of winged zebras that has a single horn on their head (why do they call it unicorn and not uniHorn?). Recommended only for resort folks on a holiday.

Damai Laut Scorecard

Damai Laut GCC Information

Address:

Damai Laut Golf & Country Club

Hala Damai 2, Jalan Damai Laut, Off Jalan Teluk Senangin,

32200 Lumut,

Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia.

Contact: +605-6859330

Fax: +605-6181018

Email: cm_dlgcc@swissgarden.com

Website: http://www.swissgarden.com/hotels/dlgcc/

Travel (2/5)
Frankly, since we were driving around I can’t say for sure. It’s about half hour away from Clearwater, take the trunk road to Pusing and head towards Jelapang. It’s a slight challenge since we need to take trunk roads and not as easily accessible as Clearwater. There will eventually be signs pointing to the golf course. Ask around, people are helpful in this area.

Price (3/5)
It’s about 70 RM on weekdays for green fees, about 50 RM for buggy. For some reason, when I asked whether Rahman Putra was affliated, the receptionist said no, but she would give me a cheaper price since I was from Rahman Putra. I don’t know what that is all about, but I thought it was a good deal.

First thoughts
There’s 27 holes, and we played 3^rd nine and 1^st nine. As a rule, try to avoid playing 3^rd nines. It’s always lousier than 1^st and 2^nd nine. It didn’t occur to me till I was standing over the tee on the 19^th hole.

Playing at Meru was like coming home. It was like Bangi all over again. Nice and broad fairways, accessible greens, open concept for our borrow fairway strategy.

The 3^rd nine was not so good, flat boring greens, recently sanded, boring hole layouts, not much doglegs, not much features. But it’s the 3^rd nine. It’s like the disappointing child in every family who prefers to spend time goofing around golf courses and writing pointless reviews.

Once we made the turn, Meru turned on her beauty.

Set in a valley, the mountains looming in the background, framing perfect greens, that checked our ball and spun it. Rolling fairways made one of my drives roll almost 280 metres down.

Especially as the sun was setting beyond the hills and long shadows stretched the valley, it more than compensated for the lack of beauty in Clearwater.

Service (2/5)
The service gets 2/5 divots. I liked the nice lady at the counter who gave me a discount. But other than that, the service kind of sucked. First the guy who was supposed to take our bags from the car trunk just sat there picking his nose and watching us take out our bags on our own. Then the changing room personnel insisted on taking our 10RM deposit when they gave us their towels. What, we don’t have towels at home? And some of the lockers couldn’t open…or at least, weren’t idiot proof for a guy like me. Get to the course!

Fairways (3/5)
This gets 3/5 divots. Even the 3^rd nine fairways were well kept. There were minimal bald spots, and once playing on the 1^st nine, it had a huge amount of roll to it. It’s undulating, but it offers a lot of challenges. Forget about the 3^rd nine. Get your money’s worth and go for 1^st and 2^nd. Hold them hostages if they insist on you teeing up on the third.

Greens (5/5)
I’m going to discount the sandy greens on the 3^rd nine and judge solely on the 1^st nine. Wow. This is the kind of greens I want to take home and sleep on. One approach shot spun so much it was dancing around the cup like a drunk Oompah Loompah. It made us look good because we were bombing putts in, and getting our fist pumps all ready for any 5-10 feet par save putts.

Rough (3/5)
The rough sits down pretty well but you can still hit it , unlike the pitbull grass in Clearwater. And you can afford to fly the ball all over since you just shout fore and hit it from the next fairway. There’s not much penalty in whacking the ball into the rough.

Aesthetics (4/5)
The first hole treats us to a beautiful scene of mountains beyond, cascading down into the valley. It’s on an elevated tee, so you can actually see the entire course. Except for the humidity, I can almost imagine Julie Andrews springing around the corner singing before we crack her head with our tee shot. Don’t boom your tee shot too hard though, because it funnels down to a stream about 270 – 280 m away.

The fourth hole is an absolute cracker. It’s like Augusta 12^th, water fronting the green, just about 130 metres from elevated tee box. I hit a PW and pushed it slightly right, and it went into the water. My drop shot also went in and I signed off for a triple, and destroyed a round of 9 over after 12 holes at that point.

The signature hole is the 6^th. There’s an opening in the foliage for us to peek through to see the par 3 green guarded by water in the front.

The course plays much shorter than Clearwater, mainly due to it being a resort course, and not a course intent on beating the barnacles out of the players. It’s a nice course for our self esteem and the greens are absolutely a delight to putt on. This, plus the fact that the course is really a beautiful course, gets it 4 of 5 divots.

Fun Factor (4/5)
It’s really hard to maintain your spirits when you’ve trudged through 34 holes of golf in a day. But I must say, Meru really gave our spirits a lift. Perhaps the scenery made us more alive, or simply we were playing better, or maybe it was just shorter and easier to handle, but at the end of the 18^th hole, we were talking about coming back again. The only let down was the Mickey Mouse 3^rd nine that was just an insult to our already embarrassing skills.

Conclusion
We traveled north to play Clearwater but ended up enjoying Meru a lot more. Perhaps Clearwater and our high expectations did not coincide, whereas we didn’t have any expectations heading to Meru. Heck, if you gave us a course filled with cows and we had to hit over a chicken coop to the green, we wouldn’t know better. But the main thing was, it played a lot easier for hackers like us. Some people might find it not as challenging, but if we put head to head, I’d say the holes in Meru are more memorable, the greens in much better condition, the scenery a lot more beautiful and the experience more exhilarating. The shorter course made it easier for us to putt for pars, instead of saving bogeys. I know you’re saying, just improve your golf, instead of blaming the course: but here’s our skills, here’s how we experience the courses, and we say Meru is a better course than Clearwater.

Plus, we might catch Julie Andrews prancing around the hills and take a shot at her.

The good: Superb scenery, magnificent greens on the 1^st nine, undulating fairways provide a good challenge, elevated tees provide a great view of the holes, lots of memorable holes, drivable par 4s and eagle-able par 5s.

The bad: Crappy service, a disastrous 3^rd nine (please avoid it at all cost!!), short holes might not be challenging to some, rough is a little mickey mouse as in not penalizing enough, parallel fairways makes it easy to get hit by stray balls. And Meru folks never apologise for a wayward shot, nor shout fore.

The skinny: 26 of 40 divots (65%). A little inflated since we had no expectations. But we had heaps of fun.

Meru Valley Scorecard

Introduction
We’ve been talking about Clearwater Sanctuary and how super the golf course is for ages. Magazines lauded it, golfers talk about it, mothers fuss about it. OK, maybe not the last bit but it has gained an impressive reputation of being the best of the best in West Malaysia, synonymous to the most pleasurable golf experience of your life, the most memorable course you will ever play in, indeed you would wish to relocate to sleepy Ipoh just to play this course.

So me and my mates decided to experience it.

Travel (3/5)
Despite our initial fears, Clearwater is actually quite accessible so it gets 3 divots from 5. It’s about 1 and a half hours away from KL, depending on how fast you drive. Either turn off at Simpang Pulai or Gopeng Interchange and take the road heading to Batu Gajah passing Kellie’s Castle. There are plenty of signs, so you won’t miss it.

You probably want to eat breakfast before the interchange, because townspeople here only start work at like 12 noon or something. Not one coffee shop was opened and we ended having breakfast at a malay stall about 300 metres down the road from ClearWater entrance.

Price (5/5)
Drive up to the clubhouse and enter the pro shop to register. We were charged 70 RM for walk in, all inclusive of the buggy and insurance. I had an affiliate with KRPM and ended up paying RM50 for a buggy!! So the 70RM package was a heck of a deal. The greens were being sanded we were told but who cares? We were playing in the second best course in Malaysia! Excellent bargain here!

First thoughts
Right on the first tee, we were staring at a dogleg left tight fairway, the sprinklers still turned on. A maintenance guy slowly rode his scooter to turn the sprinklers off as we waited, and when we were ready, we predictably screwed up our first tee shot.

Double bogey.

2^nd tee was a lot more promising, a 5 wood found the fairway. Second shot using a 4w hybrid pushed right. Bye bye. This would eventually be the norm for the day.

Clearwater is extremely unforgiving, especially to weekend hackers like us. Now it’s important to understand that this is from the perspective of hackers.

Clearwater isn’t that great.

I mean, for a course rated as number 2 in Malayisa, we kinda expected a course that blew us away. Well, actually, it did blow us away – our scores that is. But in terms of scenery, fun, playability and such, we give it a ‘so-so’ shake of our hands.

We don’t mind if the course kills us. I mean, Datai Bay killed us, but we had a lot of fun getting killed. Face it, most courses out there (except for maybe a Mickey Mouse par 3 pitch and putt) will be killing us anyway. But Datai Bay made us go away talking about coming back again. We went to each hole like kids waking up on Christmas to find presents under the tree. Clearwater just got us talking about going away.

Service (2/5)
The service gets 2/5 divots. I liked the fact that they sold sharpies at the counter. Sharpies makes us look like pros, as if we have lots of fans who needs our autograph, or we would mark our ball with a special sign. The fact is, we have 0 fans except for the occasional maintenance guys waiting for us to clear the green, and we definitely don’t hold on to a single ball long enough to bother marking it.

What bugged me was the fact that they had the sprinklers turned on for the first tee, as if they did not expect us to tee up at, like what, 9 am??! And they had sprinklers turned on at the 18^th, as if they can’t wait to get rid of us. I mean what is that about? I proceeded to duff my SW approach on the wet fairway. I would have holed an eagle if not for that sprinkler!!

Fairways (3/5)
This gets 3/5 divots. It’s nice and well maintained but had splotchy grass here and there, and uneven on some holes. Of course the random sprinkling also made the fairways a little inconsistent. The fact that it’s number 2 in Malaysia goes against it. I expected immaculate fairways, and tiny Oompah-Loompahs running around sprinkling magic seeds to make the grass even.

Greens (2/5)
To be fair, we were warned that the greens were being sanded. So it wasn’t tip top condition but I am going to blast it anyway. Number 2 in Malaysia, I expect the greens to perform better than Impiana, I expect my shots to spin back, I expect it to be consistent in speed and roll. I expect the greens to be so good I’d want it to be my bed at home.

We played to an extremely SLOW green. I mean, it almost looked as if we were putting a bowling ball or something. We needed a hammer to hit the ball forward. There were some dead patches here and there. I’m not good enough to explain if it affected my roll, but I give it a 2/5 because I three putted like half a dozen holes. Rats!!

Rough (4/5)
The rough does what its supposed to do, it eats up your ball. It just sinks in. There’s no way you can ply it out without a shovel. I don’t know what kind of grass it is, but I will name it Pitbull grass, because once it gets hold of your balls, it ain’t letting go. Of your golfballs, that is.

Aesthetics (3/5)
If there was a signature hole, it’s the 18^th. It’s a hard dogleg left par 5, about 170 m to cut the dogleg and carry the water. There’s an annoying tree in the middle to eat your balls. In fact, CW has loads of holes that allow you to cut the doglegs with a good drive. The fact that there’s water all over the place, it’s a swashbuckling grip and rip it mentality vs wimpy, gutless 5 wood to fairway and long approaches. Guess which approach we took? Just bring loads of golf balls because you’re gonna lose them.

The holes in CW are long. You either get better with your driver or be prepared for 170m plus approach shots into the green. And if you miss the greens, you’re either in the water, sand trap or a monitor lizard will be chomping on your balls. Golfballs.

Fun Factor (2/5)
I am really reminded of the time when I went to watch Star Wars Episode 1. You really want to enjoy yourself, and you really want the movie to be good because of the tradition surrounding it. Face it. Star Wars 1,2 and 3 sucked. I hated the movies and signed up on the diejarjarbinks petition. Anything without Han Solo and Donut hair Princess Leia in a golden bikini is not gonna cut it.

Likewise, I really wanted us to have fun in Clearwater. But as we approached the last hole and the sprinklers turned on, I shrugged. We had a bit of fun, but really the whole experience was a little bit of a letdown. 2 of 5 divots.

Conclusion
The purists will like the fact that holes are long, par 5s are not reachable in 2, water is all over the place and there’s nobody in the halfway huts to sell drinks. Purists are also known as crazy people who likes to feel pain. I forgot the scientific term to it.

For us hackers who like to enjoy golf, Clearwater is a reasonably good course, but as number 2 in Malaysia and the fact we had to wake up at 5:30 am to drive up north for 2 hours, we expected more. On the 15^th hole we were like, we drove all the way for THIS??!?

And another thing that bugged us. The name. Like, why do you call it “clear water” when the water isn’t even clear? I see some websites talking about the shimmering lakes like it was a feature of Rivendell in Lord of the Rings. Are they intoxicated with Ipoh white coffee? Have they even been there? We just saw mining pools. Where’s the shimmer? Where’s Galadriel, Elrond and the gay hobbits?!?

It’s like me calling my son Tiger Eldrick Woods and find out he prefers to be professional ballet dancer when he grows up. It’s just too much pressure in the name, you know.

The good: Few people, good rewards vs risks, well designed holes, some nice wildlife, Pitbull grass makes you really want to hit the fairway.

The bad: Overrated scenery, Pitbull grass makes you regret you suck at your driver, so-so greens, no Oompah-Loompahs on the fairway, deserted drink huts, holes might be too long for a hacker. And badly behaved sprinkler systems. And no Galadriel.

The skinny: 24 of 40 divots (60%). Number 2 in Malaysia? Don’t think so. Disappointing.

Clearwater Scorecard