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Horizon Hills GCC

Introduction

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

Horizon Hills.

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

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

Travel (2/5)

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

More signs would be nice, Horizon Hills, really.

Price (1/5)

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

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

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

That’s sarcasm. Truth is, simply: No.

First thoughts

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

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

Service (3/5)

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

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

Fairways (0/5)

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

Awful.

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

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

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

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

Greens (3/5)

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

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

Rough (3/5)

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

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

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

Aesthetics (2/5)

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

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

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

Fun Factor (3/5)

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

Horizon Hills GCC ScoreCard

Horizon Hills Details

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

Contact: +607-2323166

Fax: +607-2323919

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

Email: general@hhgcc.com.my

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Palm Resort GCC – Allamanda

Introduction

So far Johor, the golfing state of Malaysia has yielded one pretty good course in Legends, one mediocre one in Daiman 18 and one simply unrecommended in Royal Johor. So we were looking forward to add another good golf course into our Gilagolf bag of reviews, and we were pretty certain Johor would be able to cough up the majority of good courses for this country, it being so close to Singapore, the capital of robotic efficiency. The reasoning would be that Johor courses would cater to Singaporeans as well, so it does bear some weight that they would be slightly better than most courses if they want to capture a market as fussy as our brethrens in Kiasuland.

If you look at google maps, you’ll find one huge sprawling mass of golf course near Senai airport, called Palm Resort Golf and Country Club, and this was where we were headed for one night stay and golfing in the morning.

Travel (3/5)

The travel is very straight forward from Singapore at least. Take the Tuas exit and just go straight, follow the destination Senai all the way. The key is that you exit Singapore from Tuas, which is about 100x better than  going through the torturous Woodlands/JB Causeway (see the previous post on Daiman). The Palm Resort is right next to the airport, which technically doesn’t make it very peaceful, but in reality, with the amount of planes flying into Johor everyday—probably just 2—it didn’t make much of a difference. We did see the airport for the first time though and it was a state of the art facility.Too bad no one flies to Johor. Here’s the map from the website:

There is a slight confusion however at the entrance, stating that Palm Resort is straight on, while Palm Villa Golf Course requires you to turn right. It’s two different courses. It’s annoying in a sense, I don’t get why two courses would want to confuse the dickens out of golfers by naming themselves so close to each other. In utter confusion, we thought Palm Villa (Voucher from Top Premier Voucher Book, free green fee) and Palm Resort were one and the same course! Because in google maps, it looks like they are in the same vicinity.

This confusion carried over to the next day when we headed over to Palm Resort Golf Course with the resort buggy. One of our guys forgot to bring the voucher book so he had to rush back and ran back all the way, about 300 metres to the club house. Only to find that Palm Villa and Palm Resort were two different courses, and the discount did not apply to Palm Resort. What? Annoyed, we were already prepared to play so we just paid the special guest rate in Palm Resort and muttered our way to the buggy station.

So: Palm Villa NOT EQUALS to Palm Resort. Both are at the same vicinity but different course!

Price (3/5)

We ended up paying RM99 per person for all in package for golf, plus RM5 food voucher for each person. So it’s around RM94 for a weekday rate on a resort golf course, which is slightly high, but then again, a price we gladly pay to experience what was considered as a good course in this area. For walk in customers (non hotel guest), you might need to pay more. But (you didn’t hear it from us), there was no verification done on whether you were the hotel guest or not…so….hmmmmm.

The website was impressive enough, with an offering of 3 18 hole courses for the delight of golfers. And these are really 3 courses, not some fake advertising course like Legends, which had Nicklaus 18, Palmer 9 and an advertised Gary Player course which in reality is non-existent. At least Palm Resort is honest about it. These courses actually exist. Take that, Legends course, you liars.

The problem with courses like this is like the problem with buffet. You don’t know which one to select. The lady gave us two choices, since the championship Cempaka course was closed for maintenance, so it was a toss up between Allamanda and Melati course. Allamanda was recommended as an intermediate course, and also, more people seem to like it, as there were 14 flights already there. Melati had only 2 flights and was considered not as picturesque as Allamanda. But Melati had the Par 3 Hole No 2 with the largest bunker in Malaysia, as well as the longest hole in Malaysia at no. 15, measuring a ridiculous 684 yards from the tip. That puts Air Keroh’s last hole in the pocket.

But we decided on Allamanda as we wanted a relaxing round, and with a beginner on board, it seems like a better choice for now. We can always come back again to tackle the monster courses in Melati and Cempaka.

First thoughts

We teed off from the back nine to avoid some traffic at Allamanda, and we joined a local member to make it a four ball. She was a very nice lady, and complimented our beginner, who was also a lady, and we merrily made our acquaintance. She was also quite chatty and seem to appreciate having a younger group with her, especially us who seem to make fun of everything and laugh at every lousy shot we make. She turned out to be an invaluable resource as time went on, as she found our lost balls, gave us putting tips, gave us some good advice on nearly all the holes on yardage etc. This was key, as we sometimes would get lost converting yards to meters and completely stuff up our sense of distance.

Under the morning sun, we watch our first drives sail delightfully into a big, receptive fairway, that is almost a carbon copy of the first hole in Legends. Ah. Ginnifer courses. How we love ‘em.

Service (4/5)

The service was excellent; the lady behind the counter gave us very good description of all the courses, how many flights were there, and what was recommended. The marshal ensured that everyone moved along as quickly as possible and made sure to distribute the flights evenly on the back and front nines. In fact, we didn’t even get jammed up once, and we allowed a bunch of Koreans to go past us on our third hole. Buggy was in excellent condition as well. This is typical of the service found in resort courses: very good, very efficient, and very much catered to our fussy brethrens across the causeway. For us more relaxed Malaysians, this was a huge bonus compared to some of the service atrocities reminiscent to concentration camps we are so used to in the courses we play on.

Fairways ( 1/5)

And just like that, the entire perception of Palm Resort fell in a resounding thud. Once we teed up and went onto the fairway, I was in shock at the condition. Divots chunked up, not replaced, balding patches all over, skid marks from previous buggies, uneven groups of grass….it was shocking because it looked good from far, but now it’s far from good. It’s like seeing a girl from a distance sitting at a bar, dressed nicely, beautiful hair, nicely shaped face, great body…and when you get closer, you see, wait a minute, there’s some zits on her face and her arms and legs are too skinny…and when you get even closer, you see she has extremely thick eyebrows, lazy eyes, buck teeth and a beard. And just as you try to steer away and escape, she catches you and you see hairy arms, smell foul breath and hear a voice as deep as James Earl Jones. WHAT??

We immediately asked the local what the meaning of this was and she sagely says that the maintenance contract for the course was in transition. They have not renewed the previous contractor due to pricing issue, and instead have agreed with a Singaporean contractor to take over. The new contractor would take over in about 2 weeks from now, so until then the course was literally NOT MAINTAINED. Which explained the horrendous rough and the ugly fairways, as well as the less than pristine greens. I asked how much was the previous Malaysian contractor charging and she simply said, “Too Much for such a service.” For a malaysian golf course to choose a Singaporean golf contractor and choose to pay in SGD instead of RM is a testament of the atrocious business practices we unfortunately have in this country. How much markup do you think the previous contractor is charging, for this course to opt to pay Singapore instead?? Malaysia Boleh! Mesti Boleh Markup and make a killing one!

Greens (2/5)

The greens suffer the same fate as the fairway. There are some slight maintenance, you can see some parts are pressed down, but these are done as afterthoughts and probably not regularly. And it’s such a pity, because we saw that the greens were actually in fine condition before, and in some cases still are. The greens itself were quite easy to putt on, not much undulation, and had resemblance of better days in that the roll and consistency were still there, if not barely.

Rough (0/5)

Probably the worse feature of Palm Resort Allamanda. The rough is just inexcusable. You can tell it’s been thoroughly neglected as grass was allowed to grow to deplorable lengths and thickness, causing balls to disappear completely under. It was lamentable, so much so, it reminded us of the horrors of Bukit Beruntung, the mother of all crap course. This was very much the same experience. The second hole par 5 for instance, both myself and my partner lost our balls in the rough, not because of a bad shot, but just a skittered shot into the first cut. And they were gone. My second triple bogey on the 14th was the same story: not a bad shot in the rough and boom, was gone.

Bunkers were so-so, but the kicker was really the thickness of the rough, that made it almost impossible to find, and when we did find it, impossible to hack out.

Aesthetics (4/5)

Looks wise, this was most certainly a very pretty course. If you neglect to play on the rough, you can actually see great landscaping all around the course. In better days, this would have been a much better course than Legends for instance, but unfortunately fall short due to non-existent maintenance. The 11th hole par 5 is a challenging dogleg to the right to a receptive green. Par 4 13th is an extremely challenging hole with a bail out on the right, but any hook will end up in OB jungle.

The very pretty par 4 15th is reminiscent of the A Famosa Crocodile Hole, where a 3 wood positions yourself on the right fairway and allow you to hit into a green across the water. Hole 18 is a tough one, with the fairway sloping to the right, and balls to the right will be in heavy rough, as one of us found out and lost another ball, contributing to the overall frustration.

Hole 1 is a wide open Ginnifer hole but not so easy to get up, as it hits to an elevated tee. Hole 2 is a nice looking par 3 that drops down to a green fronted by a moat, surrounded with pretty landscaping. The last two holes, 8 and 9 are probably the exciting ending holes of the course: Hole 8 is an awesome 180 m par 3 to cross the water at about 170m. It takes guts to take on the green instead of bailing out on the right. A perfect hybrid sailed into the large green and I managed to two putt par there.

The final hole actually crosses back into the resort (and unknown to me, right next to our room), where a dogleg left cut allows you an access into a receptive green. Cut it a bit too much and you might end up OB. From 100 meters, I short sighted to the front of the green, but a chip to 6 feet and a good putt gave me my fourth par of the day, on an otherwise bad score of 96.

Fun Factor (3/5)

As long as we stayed out of the rough, we were ok with the course. In fact, the course plays pretty easy, if not for all the lost balls and lost strokes when our balls are in the rough. If given proper maintenance, it’s a close resemblance to resort courses like Palm Garden or Bangi.

The course generally have wide fairways, and gives a sense of largeness to the course…no narrow navigation with the 3 wood, just take out your driver and blast it all the way down. Having a local ‘caddy’-cum-player was also key to the fun we had, as she was able to locate some crucial lost balls and also helped us in professional advisory in navigating the course. Most of all, she helped our beginner relax and we all enjoyed her company immensely.

The fun generally improved as we moved to the first nine, and we were able to drive in the buggies onto the fairway after 10 am. We spent less time in the rough, and the two ending holes on the front 9 were certainly worth playing for.

Conclusion

Palm Resort course is a missed opportunity. Allamanda could have been so much better than when we played it, simply because of the lack of maintenance. We came during a transition period and I think it should be fair to the course if we had another go at it, when they have recovered the conditions of the greens, fairways and for the love of God, the horrendous rough. I believe that once they get the new contractor in, Palm Resort can probably be elevated to a must play course. As it is, and as Gilagolf unbiased review would have it, this is a supposed premier course that somehow manages to shoot itself in the foot and getting ranked as Not Too Shabby, the same with the likes of Kinrara, Nilai Springs and Monterez, definitely unflattering company for a course with this much of self claimed prestige.

It’s good from far, far from good; it’s that good looking woman at the bar that turns out to be a bearded man with thick eyebrows and voice as deep as Darth Vader.

The good: Pretty pretty course, the landscaping is picturesque; holes are generously Ginnifer-like, easy for the newcomer to the game; the course set up is friendly; service is excellent; good promotion prices for those staying in the resort itself; good course marshalling, throughout the game, we didn’t have to wait too long, even if 14 plus flights are in the course.

The bad: Greens and fairways are not well maintained; rough is Bukit Beruntung style, which means it sucks sucks sucks bad; for lack of maintenance, they should have dropped price a little to commensurate for the bad experience.

The skinny: 20 of 40 divots (50%). Palm Resort Allamanda is like that promising young golfer that grew up and didn’t amount to anything, and became a ball boy. Wait, that’s Ty Tryon. Well, we are rooting for Palm Resort’s new contractor to come in and do a makeover, so by no means this course should be given up on. Instead, maybe plan elsewhere for the next two months, wait for the course to recover and come back and play one of the three 18 hole courses. As a golf facility, I have no doubt Palm Resort will improve; now it will just be the growing pains. Recommended in the future; for now, maybe try Palm Villa, the confusing golf course name next door.

Palm Resort Allamanda Score Card

Palm Resort – Allamanda Information

Address: Jalan Persiaran Golf,
Off Jalan Jumbo, 81250
Senai Johor, Malaysia

Contact: +607-5992000

Fax: +607-5991370

Email: golfbooking@palmresort.com

Website: http://www.palmresort.com/golf-country-club-41.aspx