IPGC Pattaya Golf Society at the Links Bar
Monday 1st June…what the heck! It was a public holiday, the offer was a good one, golfers were eager, a new course… Parichat beckoned for the Pattaya Golf Society. In many respects it is like its sister course at Pleasant Valley when it opened, with nine reasonably ready holes and nine others undergoing planting and if the truth be known not yet ready for opening. But money beckons!
Playing from the blue tees (6,465 yards) it is quintessentially a Thai course with the usual “butch” features – many 200-yard plus carries from the tee box over impenetrable rough, water or “desert” with no bail-out areas. OK that’s half the field out already! Greens are consistent but slow. Bunkers are firm with only a modicum of sand on a clay base. Distances are approximate, caddies are still on a learning curve and only one rest stop is currently open.
Parichat Golf Course.
Par threes are a good variety, par fours mainly involve huge tee shots and short approaches and the par six is very contrived.
The welcome was very warm and the new (“temporary”?) clubhouse was clean, spacious and airy. A word of warning – the ladies are offered a course from the red tees that measures up almost a mile shorter, thus mixed competitions would not be advisable here.
Regarding the golf, runner up was Russell Exley with 32 points and the winner was Tony Campbell with 35. Russell also birdied the fifteenth hole for the ‘2’s pot. Interestingly, the leaderboard almost exactly matched the handicap order.
Will PGS be back? Maybe, but not for a long while until the course is finished – and play will be from the whites!
Cheap & cheerful, but wet
On Wednesday, 3rd June, the Pattaya Golf Society revisited Rayong CC after a long break to find a completely empty course and a thunderstorm in progress. Amazingly we were told that if our round was abandoned midway a full rain-check refund would be made, so the group set off the first tee in fine fettle.
Fairways were very lush and damp and a restriction on carts meant preferred lies were the option for the day. The greens were also extremely slow, certainly by comparison to others played recently and the humidity guaranteed a two club difference in club selection.
The leaderboard showed low scores as David Thomas and Mr Len shared second place, the latter dropping five points on the final three holes after visiting the rock hard bunkers short of the greens on sixteen and seventeen. The winner, by a long way, was accomplished Swedish golfer Tomas Nilsson who recorded a fine 33 points.
There were no birdie ‘2’s and the consolation non-winners beer went to Tony Campbell, the hero at Parichat two days previously (golf is a truly strange game). The Booby Bevy went to Mike Wilsher who suffered a lack of golf recently and his form was subsequently affected.
Larry Gibb top at Mt. Shadow
Friday 5 June saw the Pattaya Golf Society take a modest number of just three groups to Mountain Shadow to play a stableford competition. Most courses around Pattaya are struggling this time of year, mainly due to the absence of prolonged rain. Although nowhere near as badly affected as some, Mt. Shadow’s front nine fairways often provided bare lies. The back nine fairways, recently scarified, were far better. Putting surfaces here remain among the best around, leaving this writer wondering how courses with three nines can’t get their greens to the same level as Mt. Shadow – an 18-hole course.
From the blue tees this course measures around 6,300 yards, so it’s not length that will test. Rather, it is the raised and undulating greens with their slick pace that will likely determine who does well and who doesn’t.
Whilst the short 5th is probably the easiest of the four par-3s, today’s conditions saw golfers hitting into a variable 2-club wind. It was here that David Thomas got lucky and snared the only ‘2’. Give enough monkeys sufficient typewriters etc.
Three golfers made the podium: Jon Batty came in third with 33 points, one ahead was David Thomas, whose 34 points earned him runner-up spot, and the winner, by a clear two points with an even-par round of 36 was recently returned regular Larry Gibb.
Back at the Links, Mr Len drew Aussie Andrew Purdie’s card as the recipient of the lucky beer draw. The booby bevy went to Swede Tomas Nilsson, for his hero to zero performance as evidenced by the difference between Wednesday’s winning round and his “most golf” effort of today.
