What is Gilagolf?

Gilagolf is a malay term meaning “Golf Crazy”.

It started because a few friends and I got pretty frustrated looking for decent reviews of golf courses in Malaysia. I don’t know about you, but for me, if I were to spend a huge amount of money to play (and not to mention, time) on a course, I want to make sure it’s worth it. The thing about golf course reviews is that it’s the same darn thing over and over again:

“Great course!”

“Beautiful scenery”

“Pristine jungle framing the signature hole…”

Everything is so scripted, so predictable. Is Clearwater Sanctuary really that perfect? Nothing bad to say about it? Who writes these reviews? Golfers or just writers who have second hand experience and just piggy back on whatever other people say? I mean I play to a 20 (or more), and I am generally a hacker. Is that particular course good for hackers? I’m tired reading reviews by either second hand tumpang glamour writers or professional golfers who shoots in the 60s or 70s and reaches all greens in 2. If they say the par 5s are reachable in two, I’ll be like, yeah, and you drive like what, 330 metres right?

Face it, if you’re here, you’re likely a hacker. Don’t deny it. We’re part of the 99% golfers out there who play during the weekends and use our off days to travel around hacking other courses, while lying to our bosses where we are.

This site has course reviews written by hackers like me as honestly as possible. These are personal opinions, so if I play a course one time and have a bad experience with say, sandy greens, I’ll say it sucked. I don’t care if it’s freaking Pebble Beach. If we generally did not have fun on the course or someone was rude to us, or a monkey stole my 5-iron, I’ll say it sucked. You might not think so, but you probably had a better experience on that course, probably beer girls following you around.

Hopefully we can have other writers who play on these courses to offer opinions and comments as well and we will incorporate it into the main blog post. Or just get them to write on top of the course review. I’m not a computer guy but I’ll figure how to work this out if there are enough response.

Here’s the breakdown of reviews:

Introduction: All reviews start with a short intro, how we ended up there.

Travel: This is important, because I want to know if I drive all the way to Kelantan to play a course, it better be worth the travel time. Also, how accessible the course is. Mountain courses like Frasers and Camerons will have lower ratings.

Price: Whether we think it’s worth the price. Some courses are expensive, but if the experience is amazing, heck, it’s worth it!

First thoughts: Just initial thoughts when stepping on the course.

Service: How is the staff service, marshal service on the course. This isn’t that vital, but we want to make sure if the caddie calls us crap, we have someway to release our anger, without bashing him up with our 5-iron.

Fairways: How are the fairways being kept? How are the undulation and layout of the fairways? Interesting? Boring?

Greens: Are the greens firm? Soft? Hard? Fast? Slow?

Rough: Generally good rough should make it difficult for us to hit from. But if we lose 5 – 6 balls plugged into the rough, then it sucks, because it’s not supposed to always make our balls disappear. Give it back!!

Aesthetics: This is probably the main thing courses will judge on. Usually a beautiful course covers all sins. Signature holes, memorable holes will be good for rating.

Fun Factor: This is a non-quantifiable rating. Suffice to say, I might be enjoying myself on a birdie run while another might be having a crappy experience, but we try to aggregate this in the group as much as possible. Is this a course we would be returning to?

The good, the bad and the skinny: All courses have good and bad points. The skinny is the aggregation of all the ratings and a final comment on the course.

Instead of rating it each categories with stars, we will use the term ‘divots’ because we always skull the ball so it’s a good reminder for us to take divots, and the more divots the better.

We definitely want to link and be linked. It’s a natural instinct for golfers to want to group together and know people! Mail us at gilagolf78@gmail.com.

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