Very pleasant and enjoyable course.

Looks like a straight forward choice of using a hybrid. Wrong, the tricky part is if you choose the easier option, you need to ensure your ball lands at the spot where there are no trees blocking your approached to the green. My playing partner who is 10 handicap choose this path, using a wood. But his second shot have to avoid blocking trees, so he hit it left of the green and landed on the slope. 1 chip and 1 putt for par. While another guy who is 20 handicap, used the driver to clear the ravine, pitch it nicely 5 feet from pin and went on for birdie.

It pays to take risk occasionally……..

As for the Lake Course, not sure why it is call Lake Course. It started with mostly forest from Par 4 Hole 1 (yeah, the Lake is running along the left side of the fairway but not really disturbing unless you slice it big time). A short Par 4 here (282m from blue), play it safe with a 5 hybrid, and you will only have 100 – 120 metre to pitch. Except for hole 8 and 9 where you need to carry some water (not really very challenging as compare to Kajang Hill hole 9 (or was it 18) where it is further to carry. Anyway my 10 handicapper friend managed to deposit 3 balls into the lake at hole 9, after I commented “if you don’t hit balls into the lake, then it should not be call a Lake Course”. So that was his 3 lost balls for 18 holes.

Anyway it is a very good course except for those disturbing dry leave which was left to rot naturally. Ball landed on primary rough could be difficult to find due to the dry leaf. Sand bunker was perfect condition (you know lah, hit it, wing blow from front and sand get into your eye). Rough is quite thick and deep, quite punishing to get the ball out. So ensuring the ball land on the fairway will help your score. Green is good and soft. Balls are not rolling much and on 2 occasions, my shot even back spin. However it is as fast as Gilagolf describe lah, I think UPM on their perfect day is even faster.

Worth playing, with AGSSG card, only RM53 on week days. But just pray you don’t get behind those gentleman who are really enjoying their game like what happened to us. The 3 balls in front of us just take their own sweet time to tee off and to putt. We were playing 4 balls and need to wait for them, every hole (our flight has 1 x 10 handicap, 1 x 20 handicap and 2 x beginner, one of them is me lah). Apparently in Malaysia lots of golfer does not really know there is a rule saying that you have to let flights playing at faster pace to go first.

Played at tiara few times, more often than not 36 holes, just to make sure it worth the trip.

Try the black tee where few holes you need to carry about 190 to 210 to cross water or raven. I do agree the service is not up to GC standard, but the course is one the best in Malaysia.

To ‘enjoy’ playing there, you must try the black tee, I will make want to come back and conquer it

Fortunately, things got better as we headed out to the course. Had the pleasure of playing with a nice Japanese gentleman (there were only 2 of us) whom was a regular at Tiara, so he knew the exact layout and distance of each hole. The chap gave us tips on where we should be aiming our shots and short of cleaning our balls and carrying our clubs, he was the best damn “caddie” I have come across in Malaysia!

Must say the fairways conditions aren’t as good as it can be as it was soggy and even water logged in some spots. Could be from the fact their sprinklers weren’t disengaged fully and water were still trickling out of it. Greens were better compared to the fairways.

Green fees were $135pp visitor inclusive of buggy fees twin share but overall a fun course to play. Watch out for the OB’s and monkeys that will steal anything left out in the open….happy golfing!!