The Golf Club weekly review
Monday, May 29, St. Andrews (white tees) – Stableford
1st Terry Dyer (19) 37pts
2nd Ian Brimble (7) 34pts
3rd Ken Grimes (25) 33pts
Two par 6’s are how most tourists remember this course, one of the most interesting you will ever play. Set deep into the Chonburi hills, St. Andrews is in the upper echelon of Pattaya’s golf courses.
Kenny Grimes has played here many times, so the song goes. 33 points on Ken’s card was good for third place today and next up was Ian Brimble, who was a shot better for second spot.
Man of the match was Terry Dyer who closed out his Pattaya tour with a big win to send him back to Oz with a wide smile under that big moustache.
Tuesday, May 30, Silky Oaks – 4-Man Scramble
This was not our tournament, but an invitational event held every few months and sponsored by the new Barcelona Valley complex. This project is the rebranding of Rayong Green Valley, Silky Oaks and St. Andrews and the launch of their new housing project.
There is also a new golf course (Barcelona Valley?) which should be finished in a years’ time. Hosted by Khun Nirand and presented by Klaus Schakt, our TGC team of Fred Birch, Fred Graham, Steve Coghlan and Gary Emmett took third place, just losing out on count back, so well played guys! Ya done us proud!
Wednesday, May 31, Siam Waterside (white tees) – Stableford
1st Gavin Wright (12) 42pts
T2nd Ian Brimble (8) 40pts
T2nd Fred Birch (16) 40pts
Siam Waterside is the youngest of the trio of courses that make up the Siam Country Club collection. Opinion is always divided on which of the three is the “best” course, but Waterside must surely be the most playable and enjoyable. These are the jewels in Pattaya’s crown of 25 golf courses and all three deliver a 5-star golfing experience.
Siam Old Course is host to the annual Honda Classic, every February on the LPGA tour. Siam Plantation is 10 years old now and a true Schmidt-Curley design of a manicured, American tournament quality golf course, and the only one with 27 holes. If you plan on visiting Pattaya, you must have at least one of these fabulous courses on your playlist.
Playing on a Wednesday is a departure from our usual weekly schedule, but necessary to make use of the Sports Day rates that offer tremendous value on this beautiful track. T.G.C. has a lot of Siam members who slum it with us from time to time, so we had a good laugh with those who did take part.
40 points on the board is a great score here and one that even many members would be very happy to have. Fred Birch and Ian Brimble are relative novices out here and boy did they have a good day of golf to get to that 40 point mark. Troy Haack clinched the near pin on the 138 yard 16th hole.
Then along came Gavin. It would appear Mr. Wright could do no wrong and with a member’s bounce or three, Gavin’s 42 took first place today. A gracious and generous winner, his pay packet all went to our Caddy Smile programme, so thanks for that mate!
Friday, June 2, Khao Kheow (yellow tees) – Stableford
1st Peter Hynard (17) 40pts
2nd Fred Birch (18) 36pts
3rd Peter Thomas (19) 35pts
It was great to see so many guys sign up for today, and as it turned out we needed extra tee times for our 22 golfers on board. That is quite good for us in the low season and shows how popular Khao Kheow is, and so the stage was set for a great comp to start June off right.
It is especially fun to show the first timers here the similarity of B8 and B9 holes with those of TPC Sawgrass and Pete Dye’s island green there. It looked like they are working on the C course, so we were quite happy with the assigned A and B courses.
Peter Thomas is back on track and in good health and 35 points got Peter third place today. One better was another local and regular, newlywed Fred Birch with 36 on his card. And finally, making it a clean sweep for the locals, Pete Hynard strolled away with the win on 40 points.
