Monday, December 3, 2007

Royal Palm Spring Golf Club, Port Dickson, MALAYSIA

November 25, 2007

It was a family weekend in Port Dickson. The golf club just happens to be right in front of Tiara Beach Resort where we stayed for the weekend. I could not resist. Furthermore, I had this Top Premier voucher, expiring soon, that gave me free green fee.

Palm Spring brought back some old memories to me. It was here that my group of golf newcomers in year 2000 came to play. We called ourselves the Millennium Golfers. We needed a not so busy golf course to hit or rather miss hit balls during our early golfing days. Palm Spring was the perfect place.

482m par 5 Hole 10. The palmtree-lined fairways remind me of Medan's Graha Helvetia

I decided to tee off alone starting from the 2nd. Nine. My uncle, Haji Rashid would be joining me in the 1st. Nine. It was Sunday evening and the course was quiet. I was moving very fast from Hole10 to 11 until I came upon a group of golfers, 7 of them driving 4 buggies playing together at Hole 12. It would be against club rule to play in a group of more than 4 golfers. I could not afford to wait and play behind them. I decided to skip the hole.

This green of 147m par 3 Hole 15 overlooks the Straits of Malacca

Palm Spring is a 5835 metre par 72 course. It is rather a flat terrain with water in play at a few holes. The greens were not really putt able surface. The ball would bounce off the surface and jumped up and down all the way to the hole. It made reading the line useless. The fairways were reasonably well-maintained. They reminded me of Graha Helvetia course in Medan, Indonesia, minus the caddies. The green of par-3 Hole 15 was the scenic hole overlooking the Malaccan Straits.

Haji Rashid looking for his par

Haji Rashid joined me for the remaining 9 holes. It was still early when we finished the round. I had 4 pars, blew 3 holes and had mostly double-boogey game. Haji Rashid had a reasonably good round despite registering only 1 par. We decided to return and play again the next morning.

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