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Amverton Cove Thumbs Down

As the year winds down, 12 Gilagolfers headed off to Amverton Cove, a previously reviewed golf course with a ranking of Not Too Shabby. Well, we are revising it. It is VERY shabby. You can tell from the picture that it has been badly photoshopped. The golf ball is the size of a basketball. And the fairway looks nothing like that.

It was supposed to be the ultimate golf game to end all golf games for 2014, so we decided to take the day off and head off far into the outer reaches of civilisation to Amverton Cove. Now, we have already mentioned how far this Amverton Cove is, but the previous experience of it has been reasonably good. It wasn’t a great course and certainly not worth RM138 they want to charge unsuspecting golfers, but we had a bunch of seniors with us who could get cheaper and we dumped all our premier vouchers in there so the game itself was around RM110 per person. Which is still pricey but I thought should be fine.

I scored a birdie and overall 90. This included a triple bogey out of nowhere on a par 5. I played reasonably OK – it wasn’t the worst game ever, but again, about 4 -5 iron shots I had were from the fairway into the green and I just completely mishit it with my MPs. These suckers are really hard to hit. But when you hit it, you hit it.

The other problem was the course. There is a difference between a course set up to be tough and a course neglected. Amverton is the latter. It’s pretty sad to see a promising golf course turn into a turd-bath just because

a) There is not enough money, so no maintenance

b) There is enough money but not enough maintenance

Of course b) is speculative, if you know what I am getting at – but in either case, the once reasonable looking course turns into a UPM look alike. Still, black waters like the ones you find in Mordor litter the course. One hole, I swear, the whole black pond (which is not moving at all) is probably full of shit – because that’s what it smelled like. My ball was near it and I just couldn’t hit because of the smell – it was like my 2 year old’s diaper filled with 2 weeks worth of crap. The rough – unhittable – if you can find it. It was just allowed to grow so there is no first cut – fairway and then bam – ridiculous rough that is so heavy you cannot get out nor find your ball. I am sure whoever owns Amverton will say that this was purposely done – but yes, in the same way North Korea purposely set up their country so they can test how human beings have limitations to nuclear exposure. Of course. Come on – it’s neglect. Let’s just call it that. Setting up requires effort. Neglect means, let’s forget about this darn course.

Recommendations for 2015 – avoid Amverton. It’s not worth the trip and it’s trying to pass as a premier course. Let them knock the price down to around RM80 and then it would be more of a fair shake of a course that is slightly below the standard of KRTU. Amverton people – you have a nice course in your hands. Why don’t you manage it and get your maintenance program going? And get rid of that darn shit-lake!

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Kota Permai Golf and Country Club

Introduction

My goal this Ramadhan was to play in at least one premier golf course that I have not played before. Which leaves KLGCC, Sungai Long, IOI Palm (the new, expensive one) and Kota Permai. After calling, and finding out that promotion values in the first three were still exorbitant and in nowhere near the budget of our normal cheapskate mentality, we grudgingly agreed to fork out RM185 to play Kota Permai on a Ramadhan promotion. The person on the other end of the phone, probably sensing that I was Gilagolf and would crucify the course the first opportunity given, hurriedly added, “Sir, we are hollowtining the green, OK?”

“So why not cheaper?”

“Sir, very cheap already!”

Obviously have not heard of Gilagolf cheapness definition.

But you know, this is probably the last game I’ll be playing this year during Ramadhan, so what the heck, might as well splurge. So away we went!

Travel (4/5)

Travel is honestly a breeze here. If you know how to go Shah Alam and Kota Kemuning, it is as simple as ABC. In fact, just turn into Kota Kemuning turnoff from the Shah Alam highway and at the first roundabout take a right and follow the road all the way. It would take a complete idiot to get lost here.

The great thing about Kota Permai is that it is built literally right next to the commercial areas, meaning after golf, good food is just a doorstep away. Unlike the god forsaken Amverton or the travel crazy Tasik Puteri, Kota Permai accessibility is legendary. It’s like those easy courses like Tropicana or Saujana or KGNS which is built so people can find it easy and will come, unlike crap courses like Bukit Unggul, that forces you to travel so far only to serve you with a piece of turd-ball.

Price (2/5)

I know I am going to sound very unfair here, but I still think Kota Permai is not worth RM185 on a promo price in Ramadhan. I mean, that would mean, I have to literally fork out almost RM300 on a normal day?? For Kota Permai? I mean, what so great here? Is it because it has hosted a few tournaments and boom, that makes it a great course? Don’t get me wrong. I like the course, but it compares itself to Saujana a lot, but the history of Kota Permai is lacking. So what if you have had some PGA pros hack your course? Have you earned the tradition that RSGC, KGNS etc have? OK, you argue, what about KLGCC? Good point. I don’t know because I’ve never played there. But does Kota Permai inspire absolute awe and fascination? Not really. It’s a very, very nice course, but it doesn’t cut to charge RM300++ on green fee. If we had to pay around RM130 or even sub RM150, it might cut it, but at RM185, plus caddy tips, another RM210, it’s borderline difficult to recommend the pricing on a Ramadhan promo.

First thoughts

Teeing off at the first tee, the inviting par 5, you are greeted with a large expanse of fairway. It is a GREAT first hole to tee off with. The condition of the course was sub-par based on its obviously high standards, but my first thought was: Gee, it’s like a Saujana twin. A lot of tee off has elevated status, allowing you to see the course at the tee and giving you a wide view of all the bad stuff that’s going to happen to you. Compared this to the extremely flat Kota Kemuning next door, it is simply not a fair fight. It’s like Manny Pacquiao vs Steven Tyler on the boxing floor. It’s like a pitbull terrier vs a Chihuahua, which is lamed, blind and possibly bleeding on the floor. It’s simply a ridiculous comparison, because Kota Kemuning Golf Course would be like a pile of crap. That is sitting INSIDE another pile of crap, that’s on top of a huge dung hill of crap. You get the idea.

Service (3/5)

The only service we had were the caddies. And the caddies were meh. I could do without. They couldn’t give me any read on the greens, which was annoying, because the greens were like sh*t. They absolutely refused to comment or give me a break, instead giving nonchalant response like, “Break sikit.” Or the world famous, “Aim Straight” at the tee box. I don’t know why caddy schools have to teach the Aim Straight strategy because isn’t that what we are freakingly trying to do all the time? Would you advise a man dying of thirst to drink? Or a dog to bark? Or my stupid crazy neighbor to act like a stupid crazy neighbor? No! Because it’s natural! They offered some reasonable service in terms of ball searching, so it’s not all bad.

Fairways (3/5)

Kota Permai fairways are generally well kept. Broad fairways will greet you mainly, but there are some deceptive bunkers laid in the most diabolically strategic places that eats our balls, especially the fairway ones. The fairways are not as undulating as, say, Rahman, but it gives enough variation to keep things interesting. However, my biggest dislike is that at some fairways, tyre tracks completely spoilt it for me. On a RM130 course, it’s fine. On a premier course? Geez come on. And I haven’t got to the greens.

Greens (2/5)

Again, is this a fair assessment? No. It’s like taking a snapshot of Scarlett Johannsson without her makeup. She still looks hot. Ok, not Scarlett, maybe this one. I believe it’s Khloe Kardashian, who is famous for doing absolutely nothing in her life other than banging basketball players. Oops, I don’t know, I mix all of those Kardashians up actually. So anyway, fine, the greens were hollowtining and we have been warned. But the greens still suck. For RM185. If we take the maintenance away, I do recall it’s an excellent, excellent green, but I guess not today. Nada enjoyment.

Rough ( 3/5)

Ohh. The bunkers. You are going to spend a good while in them. There is the index 2 15th which plays relatively easy, but for one humongous Sarlac bunker smack in the middle, which a 210 – 220 drive would find easily. I was going on one of my hot streaks of pars, narrowly missing a 4 foot birdie putt on the previous hole and looking to take the game away…until the Sarlac got me. From there, it was sort of a downer. My hook came back and that was it. The idea is, though I hate that bunker so much, it was a very nice bunker. The rough itself was challenging, but you could still get out of it, not like the Saujana pit bull grass where it bites and won’t let go your (golf) balls.

Aesthetics (4/5)

Kota Permai is typically similar to Saujana or even Tropicana. It’s not extremely breath taking, but it’s a very nice looking course. Mainly because of its usage of elevation of the tee, smart doglegs and usage of water. I also liked the way they put wooden boards on some of the edge of their bunkers. In fact, my playing partner used one of these boards to rebound his crap shot into the green. There is slight maturity in it, but not so many trees as to actually lose your ball, unless you get an unlucky bounce like I did on my third hole, or you shank your ball so badly. I really like the broad fairways though. These are the ones where you just take out your driver and take a mighty swing at it. One of my favourite holes is hole 10. It has a blind dogleg left,and a two tiered fairway. It drops significantly about halfway through, giving you a great view of the green if you  are at the top tier.

Another nice hole is the 9th, to end the front 9. A mighty swing with your driver to the right helps avoid the Sarlac bunkers, but yet put you in an awkward stance due to it’s undulation. Overall, if you like Saujana, or Trops, Kota Permai will suit your eye very much.

First hole is a beauty. You love it immediately as it opens up a slight dogleg left. Second hole is what I fear the most, water on the left. Thank goodness I avoided that but in turn sent my drive into the trees. I punched my second out and navigated a bogey on a green surrounded with water on right.

My two blown holes has very similar stories. 3rd hole, I drove well, but horribly misaligned and sailed into the trees on left, and wicked bounced through the fence into another house for unplayable. CIS!! My other 7 is the 16th. Nemesis type of hole with water left. As usual I hooked mine into the water promptly.

Other than those, I actually played well but due to some awful decision making, my scores unfortunately didn’t reflect it. Which I guess is why we often want to come back and play golf…the belief that we don’t suck as much as you think.

Fun Factor ( 4/5)

Kota Permai doesn’t play difficult. Or maybe because we were having so much laughter that it loosened my swing considerably. It’s a huge difference who you play with. I play with my brother’s group on Saturday at KGNS: and they are all so freaking serious. It’s like I am attending someone’s wake. Or a funeral of my golf swing. My brother himself is a fun chap, but you just sense the entire joy of playing golf ebbing away into a sludge of despondency. It’s because they are good. They are so darn good, it bores the crap out of me, who in turn, did not play good because there was no chatter, no ribbing someone, no making fun of someone’s shank, no screaming because you miss a two footer for RM2…it’s just…golf and goodness, it’s so hopelessly bland. My normal group however consist of clowns who are often the noisiest flers in the course, constantly surfing of waves of joy, elation and sudden depression in the game. I don’t know, everyone prefers something to his or her own taste, but for me, bet a little, wager a little, but everyone should have fun.

The course itself had its nuances. Like the 5th. After a great drive, I was 130 away. I took out a pitching wedge and completely sailed my shot into the river behind the green. Without course knowledge, there was no way I could have judged correctly. And the caddie were useless in given any sort of help in yardage, frankly.

The par 5 12th had some major fairway problems, which shouldn’t be for a course like this.

I like the par 3 14th. It looks easy, but it’s not, because you have surrounding bunkers and a creek. My partner landed his ball inside the creek and guess what, he played from there! Inside the stream! Obvioulsy I wish he found success but he blasted over the green and then went on to a triple. Mine was a 4 footer for birdie which I retardedly missed.

The ending hole is one of the more enjoyable ones on the course. Again, elevated tee, the fairway is deceptively difficult, with bunkers hugging the left and water on the right. Amazingly I hit the water on my first drive that sliced the whole day…and hit a three wood from the drop to about 80 meters from the green and stuffed it to 4 feet and again missed my stupid par with some ridiculously bad putting!

Conclusion

It’s difficult to say no to Kota Permai. Like Glenmarie, we do think it’s a little overpriced for a middling experience….but it’s Kota Permai. Once the greens start getting better, I have no doubt the experience will increase exponentially. The fairways are already nice, the holes all have different characters, but it’s just the awful expensive pricing. If you have spare change to kill, go ahead. And don’t forget the food around Kota Kemuning. Plenty to eat, even the Bidor Duck Noodle, which is really nice.

The good:

Broad fairways are forgiving to the crooked swing; great location and travel; nice bunkers and well kept; different characters for each hole; it’s not a tough course, so hackers can look to score if you play reasonable.

The bad:

Mainly overpriced; hollowtining greens make it an awful experience; ‘Meh’ caddies and I am not relating to how they look, which is an even lower ‘Meh’; some parts of the fairways were not great, not at this price!

The skinny: 25 of 40 divots (62.5%).

I wish they’d make it an easier decision and just move down their price bracket to around RM150 on promotion. Unfortunately it is the range of Tropicana and Glenmarie and often times play similar to it as well. Is this a good deal? Frankly the hollow tining makes a great deal of difference, so if possible avoid playing under maintenance. Then again, this is when cheapos like us start hacking the course!

Kota Permai Score Card

Kota Permai Information

Address:

No 1, Jalan 31/100A, Kota Kemuning, Section 31

40460 Shah Alam,

Selangor

Contact: +603-51223700

Fax: +603-51223702

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

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Amverton Cove Golf and Island Resort

Introduction

After what seemed like an eternity, Gilagolf is back to doing what this blog was set up for ages ago. Reviewing crappy golf courses in Malaysia, sprinkled with some really good ones. But mostly crappy, because the crappy ones are the most fun. Anyways, I’ve always heard about Carey Island Golf Course long way back. It was always described in no uncertain terms, as a 9 hole stinkbomb that makes cow dung taste like Baskin’s Ice Cream. With Oreo topping. So I never really ventured there, unless perhaps if it was the final golf course on earth, and committing suicide was no longer an option.

However, a few months back, I began to hear rumours of another world. Another golf courses, set up like ‘the links in old St Andrews’, with beautiful lakes and oceans, and the wind caressing your hair as you launch a perfect 8-iron into the air, only to see it whipped around like a mongoose going after a cobra due to the high winds. Where you have to aim to the ocean, so that the wind can blow your ball back into the fairway. Where mastery of the Stinger is key, to  keep the ball under the wind. Most of us have mastered that anyway, except our Stinger is a top ball and our ball is just under the wind, it’s also skimming along the ground to only about 20 meters. This place was called Amverton Cove. At first, I thought this was a mistake and this referred to place possibly in England or perhaps a custom golf course created in the Playstation Game Tiger Woods 2013. I mean, aside from the insidious practice of naming it a very western sounding name “Amverton” – in the same way caplang products like Bonia, Giordano, Milano sound Italian — which world does anywhere in Malaysia ever represent a ‘Cove’? A cove is like a coastal inlet (according to Wiki). The last cove I experienced was called Lulworth Cove in the Isle of Purbeck when I was doing the Thomas Hardy experience walk with my wife 2 years back. It looks something like this:

This is a cove. It’s a beautiful cove.

The Carey Island I search in Google got me this:

View of Carey Island

In terms of beauty, it’s like a comparison between this:

And This:

I know. They are not even the same species. But you get my point. Anyways. It’s a free country to name anything you deem fit. Amverton Cove it is. Armed with these precious rumours, a group of intrepid golfers took the chance on a gloomy morning to head out, where no Gilagolfer (from our group) has gone before.

Travel (3/5)

I heard of Carey Island when I was a kid, and even been there before. However, I’ve probably not gone there for close to 25 years or so, so getting there itself is an adventure. If you’ve been to Tasik Puteri before, it’s more or less the same philosophy. Create a golf course deep inside and far away from the highway. However, unlike the god-forsaken location of Tasik Puteri, Amverton has really benefited from the SKVE highway at Saujana Putra, which is a direct highway that goes straight into the heart of the forsaken lands of Banting and Carey. I don’t know exactly know why google maps doesn’t have it, and instead forces you to go through Shah Alam, but the best route is to take the NKVE out of PJ, and exit at Saujana Putra. It’s not that far, especially if you’re like a friend of mine who lives in Putra Heights, which is next door. Once there, go straight past the roundabout and you immediately end up at the SKVE toll and there, you can access it. Once you’re at the SKVE, go till the end at you’ll need to turn out into the smaller roads. From there it’s pretty straightforward. Amverton turnoff is just about 1 km or so away from the old 9 hole stinkbomb golf course.

Over all, it was a welcomed drive. Just be careful with your speeds, as the SKVE has a lot of dips and bumps and not at all flat. Otherwise, I’d say travel was surprisingly easy.

 

 

Price (3/5)

I’d say it’s pretty worth the RM120 I paid to play in Amverton. The crux of the matter here is that you need to have 2 flights in order to pay 120, or you end up forking RM138, I think. This hardly makes sense to me, because all I have to do if I had one flight, was to just go to another flight and say, can I join you guys? As in, can my flight just register with you guys? I mean, if they have one flight also, sure, they will be of course ok. Even if they had 2 flights, Malaysians being such cultured and social animals, they’d also generally say yes, so we had 3 flights, and hence ok for the promotion. It obviously is a gimmick from Amverton to get more flights, like bulk purchase or something. It’s a pretty stupid idea, and only serves to annoy the crap out of your customers, Amverton. Nobody does this. Stop it.

A good thing is that for senior citizens, you are further reduced to RM108. Yaay! 15 more years for me to go to get this privilege!

 

 

First thoughts

I’ll be honest. My first thoughts were: “I’m glad I took the day off.” I mean, it was just a welcomed sight. Some golf courses do that to you and Amverton, after the dreary drive through the rain, looked great. It was so strange, to come upon this golf course after driving through a patch of land that looked horribly desolated and boring.

The sign that it was the right thing to do to neglect all other responsibilities in life and just play golf was when we saw a full rainbow over the golf course, and the sun breaking through the morning rain. It was a promise, that although our golf will no doubt suck as usual, it would be the right choice to come to Amverton Cove. Even though it’s representation of a cove is the same as my golf skills representation of Tiger Woods.

 

Service (2/5)

Don’t get me wrong. The staff was friendly enough. The same way as someone who is about to take your money and your kid’s education fund is friendly about it. I mean, we though of having breakfast at Amverton Cove first before heading out to play. Amverton not only uses English names and English landscape to describe the golf course, it also uses pricing from England to describe its menu.

RM13 for fried rice? RM17 for breakfast?RM5 for a toast??!?  And the toast was basically toasted Gardenia bread with a cheap butter and no knive. I had to spread with my spoon. And it sucked. The kopi-o was also about 5. Our breakfast for 3 ended up to be RM40. And this was with two guys eating the RM5 toast and another guy eating an RM15 nasi lemak. Is this crazy, Amverton? Like your two flight promotion, this crosses the line between mildly annoying to brain-numbingly stupid. I guess they have to travel pretty far to get the bread in and all prices are jacked up like in Genting.

Skip the club food and go straight for golf.

 

 

Fairways ( 3/5)

Amverton has Bermuda grass for fairways. Which is generally good, except that maintenance is not going to be easy. As this is a new course, the conditions were still good, if not mildly runned over because of the rain and because they allowed buggies on the fairway. There were a number of spots where the Bermuda was completely balded out and sand has replaced the grass, but I will take it as a new course trying to mature itself, which would probably take some time. So, let’s give it the benefit of doubt. It’s not easy trying to maintain these fairways in a palm oil estate. Plus, with the rain, drainage was pretty darn good as we didn’t have any casual water anyway (but plenty of water otherwise!).

Greens (3/5)

We enjoyed the greens…but it narrowly misses out because a number of these greens, on 11th or 12th, was being sanded. Again, we take it as a new course, and maintenance is still ongoing, but from what we see, the greens are going to be in very good condition soon. It’s fast, and enough undulation to give us the yips—generally, anything with 1 cm of undulation or break gives us the yips, but you get what I’m saying. I think Amverton got this right.

Rough (4/5)

There was not much rough to contend with. Basically if you’re spraying your tee shots like morning piss like me, miss it on the side of the rough instead of water. I know it sounds like a stupid advice, but say, you know your miss is a hook. Instead of aiming it on the fairway, where a hook will bounce off to the left water, aim it way to the rough, so even if you flush it, you end up in the rough with plenty of recovery options. The grass isn’t thick, and the bunkers are very well maintained, even after a solid splashing from the rain. Actually, the bunkers are great. But of course, not while you’re in it, but if you saw the rainfall, you’d think other courses like that stupid Beruntung course, the bunkers would have become swimming pools.

 

Aesthetics (3/5)

OK. Amverton Cove is nicer than we thought. I liked it, but it depends on your type of course. Calling it a links course shows how little people know about links. It’s NOT links. It’s just a flat course that is immature, hence you have little shade and trees, and not much wind and it’s flat as Kate Moss. In fact, the advantage here is that it gives a feel like RSGC, where you can just see the course and everyone playing on it. It’s like a big playing field, where you can shout “Hi!” to your pal on the 1st tee while playing on the 15th tee. Unlike ‘sandboxed holes’ in courses like Ayer Keroh, where each hole feels like you’re completely isolated from the other hole, there is a relatable sense in Amverton, where flights can interact with each other easily. I think having a tournament here is going to be F-U-N. On the other hand however, because there is literally NO elevation, the aesthetics, after a while becomes somewhat of a downer. Every hole plays almost similar with dogleg here and there, water on the left or right, some hidden lake in the middle of nowhere, and basically no sense of awe that you get like if you played in Johor’s Legends course or Saujana Cobra. Elevation makes the course more beautiful, and in Amverton’s case, this is a minus. Overall, it depends on the type of golfer you are. I personally like the hilly types of terrains you find in Rahman Putra, but it still doesn’t detract the fact that Amverton is a nice looking golf course.

The surrounding environment isn’t so good looking however, but these are all being constructed, so it’s not so fair to make a judgement until the resort gets fully operational. I might be able to trick my wife to come here for a ‘family outing’ with a couple of Gilagolfers and their similarly tricked family….

 

 

Fun Factor ( 3/5)

We really enjoyed Amverton. It’s been a while since we had a lot of fun, but basically, we had two of the noisiest flights on the course. Because it was so flat, our yells and laughter was heard all over, which makes it, I guess, quite unethical but ah well. I didn’t have my best game, but I didn’t think I messed up so bad. We teed off at 10. The par 5s here are delectable. You can reach both in 2 on the back nine. But they punish wayward shots. On hole 10, I had only 180 left after a long drive. I sliced it, and boom, it goes into the river on the right. I didn’t even know there was a river because the course was so darn flat. Double.

The 11th was bad for me because of water on the left. I topped my drive and with another 180 to go, I proceeded to pull my 3 wood into water. Stupid 3 wood now has cost me two holes. Triple. Hole 12, par 3, what can go wrong right? Over-drew my 8 iron and it bounced on the fairway and trickled to the left. I didn’t even realize the water ate into the fairway near the green…and you will get this a lot because you can’t see crap at the tee box due to the flatness—if you can get a caddy, well go for it maybe they can help. So my first three holes, I was +8. After that, I played much better, including the par 5 14th, where even if I OB-ed my 3 wood from the fairway second shot, I still put my next 3 wood shot onto the green from 190 out and two putted for bogey. I like the par 5s.

The signature hole is the par 4 18th, where you can challenge the lake to carry about 220 – 230 to cross. We played safe, but all attempted mulligans to see if we could cross and all failed miserably. From the fairway I don’t know how I messed up so badly to double bogey it but ah well.

The second nine was way better. The only letdown was the index 1 hole, which is a 289meter par 4 6th. The only problem was right water, but landing space on the left was plenty so 3 out of 4 guys from our flight parred that easily. I think they need to change that index 1 a little, it’s too easy.

Every hole has water. But unlike Rahman where you need to cross them, most of these are not fronting the teebox but lay to the left and right, treacherously eating up your wayward shots. There’s even a hole where you have to go onto a wooden walkway to walk across a swamp to the teebox, I think hole 6.

Out of 18 holes, 12 holes have water to the left, and potentially terrible for hookers like me. In fact hole 10 – 18 features 7 of 9 holes with bad news for hookers. Ironically, the only two times I ever sliced my tee shot all day ended up in the lake, when water was on the right. It. Was. Retarded.

 

 

 

Conclusion

We’ll definitely make another trip here. The travel wasn’t half as bad as we thought. And the course itself was worth the trip and the fun we had. It’s one of those courses where you just know that the second time you play here, you’ll play better because you know the courses slightly better. You know where to miss, whether to go for it or not. And of course, who doesn’t want to come back to a course with a rainbow over it?

The good:

Huge potential for Amverton Cove. Of course, if I could, I’d change the name because it ain’t a cove. But let’s give it a break. It’s a good course in Carey Island and recommended to go. The greens are well maintain, the fairways hold up to rain, the rough is also good and if you like water, hey, this is as watery as it gets. Every hole has water!

 

The bad:

The pricing is still a little steep for a course that is not elite. It’s in the middling range like tasik puteri, just above dog crap courses like Kinrara and Holy-Crap-This-Is-Awful-Sh*t courses like Beruntung, but at RM120 on a weekday? It’s high. And why is the food pricing like eating in Ben’s in Bangsar? Also, aesthetics is a hit and miss…the lack of elevation, immature trees, flat features is a minus. It’s like a girl who will be considered pretty but never beautiful.

The skinny: 24 of 40 divots (60%).

Of course, recommended to give it a try. Most of you will probably enjoy this course like we did, and once it starts maturing, it will get better. Give the food here a miss though. Down the road, there is a very good seafood restaurant (halal) called Kang Guan (I think)..it seems to be very popular. Play golf only and don’t stay a minute longer than you need to.

Amverton Cove Score Card

Amverton Cove Information

Address:

PT673, Jalan Pulau Carey, Mukim Jugra,

42960 Pulau Carey,

Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Contact: +6019-3382233/ +6019-3832233

Fax: NA

Email: enquiries@amvertoncove.com

Website: http://www.amvertoncove.com/

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Kinrara gets a Major Gila THUMBS DOWN!

Note to all Gilagolfers,

Sadly, the time of Kinrara being a haven for hackers is over. We used to be able to play there for around RM70 ish before. Now, it’s priced at RM95 per person. That’s not the worst part, the course is in an awful condition.

The irony is, the management decided to spend so much money building the clubhouse, that they neglected the course! The fairway drainage are still bad….but the rough is ridiculous. There’s no first cut, and the grass is allowed to grow horrendously long, like Bukit Beruntung. Also, they have converted a drivable par 4 4th hole to a par 3! So the front nine, plays, Par 4,5,3,3,3. That’s right. 3 par 3s in a freaking row. That’s awful, Kinrara.

Another thumbs down are the workers there. A lot of holes seemed like they are still undergoing repair. There are so many workers lounging around there barely doing anything. I mean, since we started this blog in 2007, I have never ONCE found Kinrara not undergoing some sort of maintenance work.

Oi! If you are maintaining your course, don’t charge so much la!!

Last time playing there. Sayonara, Kinrara.

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There’s something about Kajang Hill

I know it sounds a little presumptuous to say that there are courses that “doesn’t quite fit our eye.” That expression was made famous by a dude called Martin Kaymer when describing the hallowed Augusta, drawing universal derision from all sectors, including his own mother. Augusta doesn’t fit the eye?? It’s like a full blooded male saying, “Scarlett Johansson  doesn’t really fit my eye. I think Caesar from the Planet of the Apes is heck prettier.” But you know, whatever Martin’s inclination is, that’s personal. The fact is, he has the right to say those things because, ummm, he’s good. He’s not great, but he’s a lot better than me or my respected readers…no offense.

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!

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Gilanalysis 25: Staffield

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!

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Gilanalysis 24: Rahman Putra Lakes

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!

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Gilanalysis 23: Rahman Putra Lakes

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.

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Royal Selangor Golf Club – East Course

Introduction

Note: I was informed by a contact in RSGC that the 1st Nine Old Course and the 2nd Nine New Course constitutes what is known as the ‘East Course’, while the 2nd Nine Old and 1st Nine New is the ‘West Course’, so for the ease of rememberance, this article will be on the 1O/2N, East Course of RSGC.

When Gilagolf started 4 years back, we started with a simple mission: To give readers honest reviews on the golf courses we play on, scrubbing away the prestige, the pre-conceived ideas of the course, the traditions, the marketing drivel and getting down to the facts: how hackers in their teens to 20s handicap play the course.

Through this journey, we’ve faced many disagreements from loyal members from courses such as KRTU, Bukit Unggul, TUDM etc, but these reviews remain mainly in the realm of personal opinion or experience; it’s by no means set in stone. If the courses suck, then at least there’s an imperative to improve. If you don’t agree, what the heck, it doesn’t really matter what a bunch of 20 plus handicappers who duffs, hacks and digs golf courses around Malaysia think, does it? Gilagolf provides what no other sites out there provided (which was the reason for the inception of this blog anyway), that is a look from the eyes of not-very-good golfers (hackers), which constitutes possibly 99% of the fearless joes who deign to pick up this blasted, cursedly addictive game of golf.

Through this journey, we have come upon courses we never thought we’d play on: Saujana, Glenmarie, Mines, Tropicana. Prestigious clubs like KGSAS, Bukit Jawi and Clearwater didn’t get too great a review while gems like Meru Valley, Staffield were uncovered. Our favourtie Bangi also makes it in the top-10 list.

And now for the 59th course to be reviewed, we’ve added Royal Selangor Golf Club, the country’s most prestigious golf club, and possibly a cultural institution forming the very backbone of the modern society in Malaysia. How will we approach such a reverent subject, as holy as the nation’s constitution itself?

Why, by hacking it of course.

Travel (4/5)

Traveling to RSGC is a simple feat: every golfer in Malaysia probably knows where RSGC is: along Jalan Tun Razak, right behind RHB headquarters. From almost every sky scraper you’ll be able to find the former tin mine area designated eons ago by the government for one of the oldest golf course in Malaysia.

In case you’re still blur (and we have in one instance an intrepid fella in our group who mixed up RSGC and KGNS and went over to the latter, and who have since received such a resounding lecture on such criminal negligence of reasoning, that he no doubt will know where and what RSGC is for the remainder of his hopefully very long life), here’s the map.

But seriously, if you call yourself a golfer and have no idea where or what RSGC is, it’s probably time to explore another game like lawn bowl or curling, where you mop floors for a challenge.

Price (3/5)

We were brought in by a member – in fact, short of breaking in and climbing over the electric fence and illegally teeing off – you have no choice but to have a member bring you in. Thankfully, over the course of playing this game, we have made acquaintances that have been very useful. However, RSGC yields a hefty price even for the member guest. The green fees are over RM200 on a weekday (the website rates has probably not been updated since the last World War), and add in the caddy, and the tips, you’re looking at high RM200s to RM300 range. It’s still not as STUPID as some pricing like Mines or Datai, which can hit RM400 on a given day; and after all, RSGC has probably earned the right to charge these fees: we’re talking about the local Augusta, the national heritage; and we’re going to hack it up in our blasphemous interpretation of this divine game.

So really, it’s not too bad price to pay, just don’t expect hackers to play there often. For the novelty of 18 holes on the very course that Walter Hagen used to hack? Hey, a little premium for tradition doesn’t hurt.

First thoughts

We are going in without any knowledge or reverence to RSGC’s tradition. This might probably go down wrong with our purists readers (which is estimated to be 1% of readers to this hacker blog); but RSGC’s first impression is pretty flat. Literally flat. From the lounge, you can look outside across the practice green to the course and count the number of fluorescent yellow flag sticks (which to us is a smart idea) stuck all over the course. There’s not much elevation, or self contained holes; it plays like a traditional golf course: parallel fairways, bail out areas left and right and thankfully a healthy absence of the dreaded white OB stakes.

You can’t write about RSGC without first giving a little history lesson. Of course, in full knowledge that any history lesson would be the best way to tune off readers and put everyone to sleep, instead, I’ll direct you to a very good book called “An Informal History of The Royal Selangor Golf Club: A Royal Heritage”. You can probably buy it from the club or get it off a member. If not a condensed version is found in http://www.rsgc.com.my/history.htm. The website, however is sorely in need of restoration, since it somewhat resembles my first website project about my Westie Terrier back in 1996, but I doubt that’s their priority.

As for novelty, RSGC has on the record, as the second oldest golf club in Malaysia, with Taiping Golf Club pipping it as the oldest, when they were established as an 11 hole club in 1885. In fact, Taiping Golf Club is the oldest in Southeast asia. I heard that it has been shut down, unfortunately, and I can’t imagine which idiotic non-golfing descision maker would deem it anything less than a national crime to shutdown such a club. Anyways, RSGC has no problem on this, as this club is teeming with life. Even for a weekday, you will find many people on the grass only range (they deem range with mats for wimps and for golfers with as much self esteem as a piece of carrot), on the practice green and teeing up on the first…which kind of makes you wonder: don’t these flers have work? Until you realize that they are probably thinking the same thing about you.

Anyways, RSGC was established in 1893, a very interesting history ensued, surviving the war, restoration, relocation etc. It’s amazing to know that Lake Gardens also once had a 9 hole golf course and RSGC almost ended up taking that over. See, Malaysian history is so darn interesting when we don’t need to remember all the sultan’s similar names and whether the Bugis, Dutch, Portugese or Eskimoes came to colonise our beloved nation.

Service (5/5)

Except for the fact that you cannot use your phone in the main lounge (likely a Steve Williams look a like will dump your phone into the pond), the service is expectedly exampalary for a club with this much prestige. You really feel like you are part of history, sitting at the terrace or lounge, cross legged, wishing you had don on a pair of white Englishy pants and sipping some Englishy tea while chatting quietly in an Englishy way. Instead we were all in our oversized shirts and pants and looking like the chinamen we all were.

While the service was generally good, it is the caddy service that really take the cake. We usually don’t like caddies tagging along, one because there are actually very few good caddies in this world; and two, we suck at golf. With a gallery of caddies, it’s even worse. Especially if caddies are like those in KGNS, who are all single handicappers, who really pressure the dickens out of you and even at one point scolded me for messing up my shot…hey, thanks but no thanks.

But RSGC caddies are mainly senior guys who will lug your bag or manage your trolley for you, and give you excellent advice on course navigation. We all had A-grade caddies with us, and it makes a huge difference. I know my score still requires a calculator to add it all up and resembles an arithmetic nightmare, but think about it, it could have been a lot worse if not for some timely tips from my caddy, an old, wizened Yoda. His reading on the greens (and later you’ll find these greens devilishly fast, making Sri Selangor’s greens a walk in the park) was spot on; and you’re gonna need all the help you can get in this area.

Probably the best experience of caddies we’ve ever had. Plus, this caddy of mine has been with RSGC for 48 years. We spent a lot of time walking (no buggies here to desecrate the course) and talking and he told me long histories of the club, which I found very interesting: in fact, I wish he was my history teacher, I would have scored a lot better for my SPMs in form five.

Fairways (2/5)

Ah, where the rubber meets the road. We still need to tell it as it is, and as much as I would love to say RSGC has the most pristine fairways ever….it doesn’t. In fact, RSGC fairways seemed very very much mediocre for the price you are paying, resembling the much cheaper and much maligned Seri Selangor. I’m not a course expert and I wouldn’t know what sort of issues they are having, but it doesn’t look like this is actually what they desire to achieve. It might be work in progress, but the fairways were sparse in some areas, bald patches in others and even affected with what we laymen term as fairway acne, where cowgrass has started to grow in patches on the fairway. A quick look at their website describes the fairway as ‘Seashore Paspalum’ which could very well be Latin to me for my understanding. The rough remains as familiar cowgrass and the greens are Tiffeagle, similar to Beringin greens.

Back to the Papadom fairway, I asked Yoda why it was so, and what was RSGC trying to achieve, and he barked back at me, “Do or do not, there is no try!” while meditating in the Force. He did add that there was not enough sand on the fairway for the grass to grow in a more compact manner, and that the grass was only recently changed to this Papadom variety and they would need some time (and possible additional budget) to get it perfectly mat-like like those we find in Tropicana.

The plus point was that we were detained for 45 minutes on the 14th by rain after the rain, the fairways held up very well, with no sign of casual water. Still, bare patches gives this a disappointing minus on the course.

Greens (5/5)

As disappointing as the fairways were, the greens were a joy to behold. Not to say we did extremely well on the greens and we were playing, likely at the speed of 10, which I am thinking has gotta be pretty fast, since in my home club we are playing at 8. The greens in RSGC are in perfect condition. The roll is perfect, it is fast; and most featured table top greens, meaning a bad approach (which I had A LOT) does not have any bail out areas. These raised greens are hellish to stick to, and even then even more crazy to putt on. Eventually, psychologically you are so weakened that you are basically panic putting, i.e you don’t dare to putt with confidence and you end up just molesting the ball with the putter and groan when you miss that one footer knee knocker. The rain helped stymied the speed a little, but by then we were so utterly confused that I actually managed to putt worse after the greens slowed down!

But this is where Master Yoda kicked in. Over the course of my back nine, after my game stabled out after an outward 50 on an otherwise ‘easier’ Old course, his breaks and reads were essential and led directly to Par on 11th and Par on 13th and saved bogey on 14th and 15th. I one-putted 5 out of 9 holes, at one point one-putting four in a row. And this included an off the green putt on 12th that stopped literally 1 cm from the cup. Easily would have been a blown out game if not for him.

Rough (4/5)

The rough was cowgrass, and I found it quite fascinating that they are able to demark the cowgrass from their fairways so nicely. Cowgrass fairways were not unfamiliar for us, having hacked around KGNS and KRPM and for RSGC, there was a good balance between challenging and bail out roughs. The problem wasn’t so much of the grass, it was the number of trees in your way. And these trees are huge, mature ones, cropping out and blocking your shots and you need to play a variety of punches with your 5/6 irons or going over with your 8/9 irons. The bunkers were in good condition as well, after a heavy shower, not water clogged bunkers to be found.

Aesthetics (3/5)

RSGC will not the the prettiest course you laid your eyes on. It might carry a whole history of tradition, but at the end of the day, the flatness of the terrain makes very few elevated views of the course (at least on the ones we played on). We didn’t get to try the signature 17th hole on the Old Course, having played the first nine Old and second nine New, but the overall looks of the course wasn’t breath taking. A view of the Twin Tower and KL Tower could be seen on the first few holes of the 2nd Nine New Course, and the mature trees do cast some grand views of the course. The caddy mentioned some of these trees were donated by members; while others were as old as the course itself, carrying with it the entire history of the inception, the Japanese occupation and direlection and the restoration to modern day. I half expected him to touch the trees and connect himself to Ehwa and start chanting in Na’vi. Which he didn’t of course.

KL Skyline is definitely part of the course, and I am sure on a sunny day would have afforded some great camera shots. As it was, overcast skies didn’t inspire us too much, and as mentioned, there are many prettier courses out there, compared to this Malaysian Augusta.

Fun Factor (4/5)

Fun indeed. The greens were the primary driver of fun, because it’s truly great to see true roll for a change, after having played on nonsensical greens elsewhere. We’re not great putters by any stretch of imagination, but if you see your curling 10 footer go in not once, twice, but more times, you can be sure you’re enjoying it. As we were wagering a little, it was simply who putted better, and our groups were like boxers, trading blows by dropping good putts to square, to win. Never mind the double bogeys to win it. The course itself is an enjoyment. Now, even if the aesthetics isn’t much to shout at, the course set up is a different matter. I remembered looking around at the first tee (before knocking it OB to the driving range), and thinking, “This looks pretty flat. How difficult can this be?”

For some reason, it seems to play a little longer than it should. At about 6171m for the 1st Nine Old and 2nd Nine New, it seems to be average. Perhaps it’s the yardage that throws us out a bit, or the fact that we are so afraid of the greens we’re all hitting a club less; or the fact that a stray shot requires you to navigate through the mature, donated and the Ehwa trees, but with just two GIRs, it just means, it ain’t easy! Not because we suck, of course. How can that be?

But the fun was that OB stakes were rare and the course allowed all kinds of creative escapism. I was really funneling into a crap mode in my first five holes. OB hole 1. Three putt hole 2, Water in the pretty looking par 5; duffed chip in the nice par 3 4th and a topped drive to 50 m in the next hole. My caddy must have thought I was the dumbest golfer around, but I managed to right the boat a little and clear out my jitters eventually.

The 9th hole in the Old course was an awful one for a sliced drive and I deposited my third into the bunker and couldn’t get it up for bogey.

Making the turn to the new course, we teed up on a wide and inviting fairway on the 10th, under a humongous Ehwa tree. The second par 4 result was from my caddy’s wonderful and perfect read, missed my par on the 12th by 1cm, and parred the index 2 par 5 13th after wildly driving it so far left that I borrowed a fairway from the old course.

The closing 18th on the new course is worth mentioning because it’s a monster. A good drive still left me a 3 wood in and predicatably when all was at stake, I sliced it into water on the right and knocked my 4th into the fronting bunker, losing the wager. It’s a tough cookie to crack but it’s a very good ending hole, and I can just imagine the other drama that has unfolded here, especially ones involving larger winner purses than our RM4 per hole. There, we are playing in RSGC but we’re still cheapskates.

At the end of the day, RSGC definitely gave us the lion share of fun in our group.

Conclusion

It was indeed with some regret that we came to the end of our round with RSGC. Unlike other high expectation courses, RSGC didn’t disappoint overall. Fairways could use improvement, of course, but given the vicinity and accessibility in the heart of KL, and activity teeming around the club, and of course the rich history surrounding the club, it’s definitely a great experience to have a game here. Of course, it’s out of bounds usually to people like us hackers, unless you have a member friend.  It doesn’t blow you away with looks, but the good design, character of holes and amazingly manicured greens make up for mediocre aesthetics and mediocre fairways. And of course, with Yoda beside us: fear not we do, confidence we have, putting we will be good in, also, big our tipping will be.

The good: Geographically one of the most accessible course we know; though socially it is locked-down like Alcatraz to only members; great service especially from Master Yoda; greens are probably the best we’ve experienced; flat aesthetics belies a challenging course design surrounded with mature Ehwa trees; historical heritage that anyone with an opportunity should definitely play on.

The bad: Fairways are really not up to par for a course with such a reputation; aesthetics are not mind blowing; pricing could be mighty steep for the member guest and hidden costs like caddy tips could very well have you taking a policy loan out from your kids’ insurance and eating peanuts for the week.

The skinny: 30 of 40 divots (75%). RSGC’s long history has its pros and cons; many modern clubs might surpass it in terms of looks and gimmicky holes, but this is the original, the Augusta, the hallowed history of our nation’s love for golf imbued into its very fairways and greens. Where the Haig has treaded, and Bobby Locke himself has played on, what more is there to ask for the golfing afficiando? For the course to withstand the test of time and still have so much activity around it is a testament to the course design, club management and club members. It’s a must play for all Malaysian golfers simply for the historical influence on the game and we can finally now say, Gilagolf has hacked RSGC.

RSGC East Course Score Card

RSGC Information

Address: Jalan Kelab Golf, Off Jalan Tun Razak
55000 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Contact: +603-92063333

Fax: +603-92853939

Email: rsgc@rsgc.com.my

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

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CityGolf @ BSC

Introduction

Golf has always these 2 disadvantages: we’re at the mercy of the weather and we’re stuck with crappy golf courses. So imagine you have discovered the art of teleportation, and you have managed to break your body into sub-atoms, transported through light across the world to another place and have your atomic structure reconstructed. Imagine you also have mastered the art of controlling weather and you can now optimize the weather to be slightly around 20 degrees, with also inverter clean air technology.

Basically, you are Storm and Nightcrawler rolled into one. Time to save the world?

No, like all avid golfers, you would obviously transport yourself to all the top courses on earth and start hacking those courses!

So this is the premise of CityGolf, an indoor golf club, sporting 4 areas (I think) with a giant screen simulating any golf course on the menu, for you to hit an actual ball against the screen and watch it fly. It’s like TigerWoods the computer game, but where you are actually hitting the ball.

The concept is not new…when I was about 25 and when I first picked up the game, I did ask around to see if there was a sound business case for it. I guess there wasn’t at that time, and I could only fork out RM30k for that venture, to which the vendor in UK gave me a virtual finger.

Travel (4/5)

CityGolf is located at the Bangsar Shopping Centre. No, not Bangsar Village. The famed BSC that has been around for eons and that had recently upgraded. It’s impossible to miss. Go to the new wing and go all the way up to the 4th floor. Boom, you’re there, easy peasy! Parking might be costly though, and for all the kiasu golfers who are so accustomed to free car parks, it might not be a kick in the face.

Price (3/5)

Ok, Pricing. The easiest is to get it off their website over here:

It might seem steep a little, but there you go, nobody expect this to be cheap, what with all the technology involved. And hey, you don’t need to exercise by doing all those annoying walking with your feet…that’s gotta count for something, right?

But digging further, apparently they now have a promotion on weekdays and as well as Sunday nights 6pm onwards. It’s buy one hour and get one hour free. So basically, you pay RM100 for 4 people and you get to play 2 hours. That  makes it RM25 per person for 2 hours. Which is pretty ok, I think, and for the novelty why not?

First thoughts

Well, don’t expect it to be like real golf, it’s a simulation after all. There were four of us, but basically 3, since after a couple of swings, my wife decided that the magazines (and there were A LOT of cosmo and girl mags) were a lot more interesting than swinging a club at a screen.

We tried out the “driving range” first, and it was fun. We were hitting pretty accurate, and my 8 iron was dropping around 140 metres, which was typically correct. It might be a little intimidating at first, especially when you thwack the driver and it slams into the screen, but you will get used to it.

The plus thing is that you get a whole lot of statistics, and to a stats junkie like me, it’s a nice touch. Will this help us improve? Personally, I don’t think so. It’s not like I can control my launch angle and all that jazz, but it might be good for someone who can read these (like a teacher), and then tell us what to fix. I think it’s great. I’m so sick and tired of clownish golf teachers (and boy we have a lot), who would just say, “You look up lah.” “You swing too fast lah” “Just relax lah”. I mean, what the heck?

Service (4/5)

While not your traditional golf club, CityGolf doubles up as a lifestyle club as well, with a bar, and dining area and also a gigantic screen where I saw a bunch of people watching aussie football. Which is how Australians call a variant of rugby. I think. Anyways, service has got to be good, and it was. They got us into our ‘booth’ pretty quickly, tapped a little on the system and we were off. Like all Malaysians, when they came and told us time was up at 7:50 pm, I told them we started at 6:00 pm (which was the truth) and asked for 10 more minutes, and was obliged, so we played another par 3 for fun. Friendly folks.

Accuracy (2/5)

Now, the review’s gonna be a little different, since we’re not exactly dealing with a golf course in a traditional sense. It’s a sim. So, we’ll be looking into Accuracy as the first  criteria, i.e how accurate does it depict our shots. I think it does a fairly good job on the good shots. But there were times when we completely hashed the shot (and there will be plenty I can tell you) and still saw the ball go 200 meters. Once I sliced it so bad, in real life it would have boomeranged back to me, but in the sim, it flew to the right, and landed 215 meters. We thought it must have been because there was no wind, and again we tried, and again I sliced, and it was about the same.

I’ve played golf long enough to know my crap shots have no chance of even getting past 180 meters. So, strange as it may sound, maybe our shots are SO LOUSY that the sim does not know what the heck to do with it, and automatically corrects it, the AI thinking to itself: “No way this shot is like this. Unless it’s an orang-utan swinging the club, which in my algorithm is a 10000000 to 1 chance happening.”

Trust me, Mr Computer, we ARE the Orang Utans in your algorithm.

Realism(2/5)

Realism is not so much on how the game interprets our shots, but how we interpret the game. While the first hour was quite fun, especially when you get to wallop around the hallowed grounds in St Andrews, the thought is basically, “Gee, it’s just not the same thing.” There is obviously no way they can simulate everything, so I guess this is more of a technological limit.

The fairway, rough and sand are just different textures of mat we hit from. The rough doesn’t really do much to the game, in fact, we prefer to whack from the rough since it sits up so nicely. The sand? It’s just the rough in white. Wouldn’t it be cool if they actually put a small bunker in the booth? Of course, the clean up crew is going to curse the day they said yes to the job.

But how great it would be if they had wind pipes around the booth and when we set it to windy or whatever, we’d literally feel the wind around us. Or water, if we set to stormy. As of now, wind, breeze etc only affects what’s on the screen.

And adding some speakers around the booth, where we’d have ambient sound would also create another experience. And the ultimate, dynamic flooring, depending on where we are on the course, the floor auto adjusts itself to simulate the lie. Wow! What are we smoking??!

The worse experience is on the green, and again there is no way to properly simulate the putting experience. Here, they try to tell you to putt to the green and follow the line, but there’s no way we can do that without making a hash out of it, either too slow, too fast etc. So we all end up 4-5 putting. There was once, one of us, a beginner, putted like 7 times or something and ended up with an 11. It wasn’t very fun at all, waiting for her to finish up. It came to a point where we decided: look, forget about the green, everytime we hit the green, we just pick up the ball and play the next hole. Of course, we were all given massive scores at the end, but who cares? This ain’t real!

User Interface(3/5)

The UI was pretty clear cut. Just tap around the screen to navigate and select different properties of the game. It will come pretty intuitively for guys with ipad, until you start trying to flip with your fingers or pinching to zoom in and realize you look like a complete nincompoop.

It wasn’t as easy to readjust and realign though and after spending a few seconds trying to figure it out and too lazy to holler for help, we said, just aim to the other side of the screen to compensate.

But overall, it was a fairly easy to use system. You can even email your scorecard back to yourself, but due to our maximum scores on each hole (having picked up the ball), we said, nah, no need lah.

Aesthetics (3/5)

Graphic wise, it bears a striking resemblance to TigerWoods EA sports golf. It’s not too bad, but on close ups, it does look like some details have been minimized to optimize the performance, I suppose. I don’t think anything much can be done about it. The whole area itself though is nice. It’s in good condition and they provide us with really great clubs, the S9-1 driver and cobra irons, vokey wedges and scotty Cameron putters. They even have ladies set out for you. It’s good to play with decent clubs, but for some inexplicable reason, our game continues to suck. WHY?!?

Golf courses wise, it’s a beautiful menu. No Augusta unfortunately, but Pebble Beach is there. Kapalua, St Andrews old course, Bayhill, Belfry, Torrey Pines, Oakmount…these are golf royalty here, and hey, we’re probably never gonna play there, so might as well just enjoy the sim. No Bethesda though, so no simulation of US Open 2011!

Fun Factor (3/5)

It’s definitely a novelty at first. To be playing golf in perfect weather, with perfect lie, with cosmopolitan magazine to read, with sandwiches to order, and taking a leak in an actual toilet, as opposed to behind a big tree in the wilderness. It’s a great place to take beginners, especially for golf lessons. I had a chat with the resident pro there and it seems it’s very popular to learn from there. It’s definitely better than your typical driving range pro’s standards, especially with the immediate feedback system on screen. It’s a nice place to take kids as well, or your wife who wants to learn (just keep away all the girl mags!!), because you don’t have the obnoxious chinaman uncle in the flight behind yours, puffing a cigarette and cursing “Why SO SLOW WAN??!? %%$#^&!” It certainly adds a little pressure with a chinaman cursing you.

It might also be a nice place to take out your girlfriend on a date, strange it may sound. But it’s very popular overseas to play mini-golf at night, which didn’t really catch on here, probably due to the weather. Maybe sim-golf will change that. Or not.

But the realism does take the fun out a notch or two. I don’t know, it just feels weird to hit a shot and instead of walking or driving or just generally looking for a tree to take a piss; you go back to the sofa and sit down and play with your iphone or read a mag. It takes you out of the game. Instead of wondering how to hit your next shot, you just wait till it’s your turn and you then decide. It’s a lot like bowling. Especially when you have like 8 people in one lane. You bowl twice, you celebrate (or curse) depending on your score, and you sit down and go into screensaver mode while waiting again.

Especially when someone in your flight plays not so well, on the greens, putting here and there, it just comes to a point where, “Jeez, forget it, let’s just play the long shots and forget about putting.”

Conclusion

Whew, that’s a lot to talk about for just a simulation of golf. Points are added because it’s still fairly a novelty here in Malaysia….and it will definitely help in bringing more people to this crazy game of golf. It’s definitely a good alternative to hang out and chill on a Sunday evening, along with having a few laughs at our considerably retarded swings.

An added touch is that Citygolf holds regular tournaments for the public which can be tracked at their website, so I think that’s a pretty cool feature, especially if you plan to play there regularly.

The good: The price is reasonable, especially promotion wise; travelling is easy, while the wives go shopping, at least the blokes can now do something else other than sitting down on a bench looking like a twit; easy-going, no intimidation for beginners; chance to play St Andrews and Pebble Beach for the upcoming hackers; good venue for corporate functions and tournaments might be interesting.

The bad: The green simulation will test your patience until you decide to tomahawk your Scotty Cameron putter on the ground, especially if you’re just starting or you have a beginner on board…until you realise it ain’t your scotty cameron! Instead, maximise your time and skip the greens; realism is still a little short especially when I can escape out of the deep woods in one shot; accuracy is suspect when my famous banana slice goes 215 meters and I can hit the green in regulation.

The skinny: 24 of 40 divots (60%). It gets an above average because of the novelty of indoor golfing, a reasonable simulation of the great courses (no Augusta!), excellent service and providing us an escape from following our wives shopping. It doesn’t replace the real experience though, unless they can simulate the smoking, cursing chinaman uncle in the back flight.

CityGolf @ BSC Information

Address:

Bangsar Shopping Centre
285 Jalan Maarof, Bukit Bandaraya, 59000 Bangsar, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Contact: +603 2282 0011

Fax: NA

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

Email: info@citygolf.com.my

info@citygolf.com.my