PSC golf from Tropical Bert’s
Wednesday, May 14, Bangpra – Stableford
A difficult write-up to do as I usually laud the course here and say what a great time we have had, but on this day, sadly, I cannot. I will comment on the monkeys later, but I did lose from my cart while being inattentive, I should know better!
We had a good turnout for the day and arriving at Bangpra the book-in was quick, as usual, and the place seemed a bit quiet, so we were soon at the start. In fact we were able to get away quite a bit earlier than scheduled. Walking down the first hole the course seemed as normal, except that the fairway was a bit bare and the ground hard; indeed my second shot bounded on over the green. The green was also a bit ‘hairy’, as they are normally lightning fast here.
Wednesday winners, Maurice Roberts and Jim Ferris, pose with one of Bert’s finest.
Ten holes on with six ‘no-returns’ on my card it was more than obvious that the ground was bone hard, with large areas of brown in the rough (where I was most of the time) and no grass, and the greens were not up to their normal standard. Really surprising as it seems to have rained a lot lately but maybe this course had missed it all.
I cannot remember Bangpra being in this condition and I have been playing here a long time. There was a lot of spraying going on and I can only surmise it is something to do with the aforesaid comments.
There was a fair wind blowing that cooled us so the round was quite pleasant apart from the ground, indeed we even saw one of the big monitor lizards that was sunbathing on one of the greens. It was sad that our approach shots caused it to go back into the water.
We also noticed that the place was teeming with monkeys, it is that time of the year when they have the little ones and many of the mothers were carrying them. This also makes the big males really touchy and I thought we had got away with interaction with them as we walked across to the 17th green from my cart. Fortunately we had looked around and although I could not see anything I put away all my valuables in my golf bag. As we putted out we looked at the cart and one of the big ones was in the cart looking around and we noticed that it had something white and as we dashed to the cart it ran off with the white ‘thing”. Took some time but I finally realised that it was my electrolyte powder, so if you see a monkey frothing at the mouth, it is probably eating it. However do be careful.
Back at Bert’s it was soon time for the results and obviously some can play on rock hard and bare ground, most cannot. In the A Flight, 0 to 18, the winner was Maurice Roberts with 42 points ahead of Bob Watson in second with 36 and Max Scott in third with 33.
In the B Flight the winner was Jim Ferris with 42 points ahead of Barry Oats with 35 and third Daryl Evans with 31. Both winning scores were really extraordinary.
Near Pins: Brian Gabe, Steve Hamstad, Barry Oats, Landis Brooks
Friday, May 16, Pattaya C.C. – Stableford
When I first retired here, all those years ago, we played Pattaya Country Club on a very regular basis. I remember the course in those days, it was as boring as any layout around but I still bought a year’s membership and played it regularly. The reason, for me, was that it had the best grassed fairways in the area, and it was really like playing off a carpet.
Our attendance here has dropped off drastically over the last few years, for very good reasons, but we had heard there had been many recent changes and improvements so we decided to give it a go. Dick managed to get us a special deal on the green fee and the course is great value for money at the moment if you want to play there a few times or take a group.
When we arrived at the course we found the ‘temporary’ clubhouse was still in use but that a new one is in the process of being built. The front nine had 3 fairways being sanded and I noticed some of the bunkers have been changed on the first par 5. The greens on the front nine were not too bad and the speed was fine. On the back nine the fairways were fine but the greens were slow and some were in need of maintenance. But all were playable.
All in all, the layout here has had a lot of work done on it but it still seems to be a work in progress. However, at the special rate it is well worth a visit.
Back at Bert’s we announced the results and the winner on the day was Tom Herrington with 38 points on count back over Landis Brooks in second. We then had count back on 35 points that saw Dick Warberg in third and Barry Elphick in fourth. T.T.F.N.
