NORTHLANDS GOLF COURSE, VANCOUVER, CANADA

Mr Lim and I decided to play the nearest golf course in Vancouver that was Northlands Golf Course which was wisely recommended by the hotel staff at the Sutton Place Hotel. I have previously stayed in this hotel in 2011 and found the location was very good for dining and shopping which is the Robson Street. Robson Street is the famous shopping and dining street where Banana Leaf Restaurant is located and lots of Asean Restaurants too! Shopping branded items is also a must and I bought a Samsonite bag at a bargain...

Since we are talking about golf, here are some photos of this golf course which is about 25 km from Vancouver! We paid CAD 50 for the Titleist rental set which was the 913 series and Scotty Cameron putter..

We were late for our tee-off time due to unexpected traffic jam but the starter was kind enough to let off the group behind us to go first and he informed everybody at the 1st tee box that we are golf professionals from Malaysia and just arrived from the airport...As we only play two balls, he asked another two balls to join us, so Greg from Australia and Watney from Vancouver played with us...Greg by the way is a 8 handicapper!

That's Greg and me, we both played 88 gross because he sprayed his tee shot into the woods many times,,,

As for me and Lim, we were all square with 88, such as nice course and great golf sets too...while we waited for the city cab to arrive, I bought a t-shirt at Club Pro-shop and saw a notice about selling all the available rental sets on the 14th September for only CAD 1,000, but we were scheduled to fly home on the 11th..

WHISTLER GOLF CLUB,BRITISH COLOMBIA IN SEPTEMBER 2013

I was involved in organizing a buying mission to British Columbia in September 2013 and despite the busy schedule I was able to set aside two rounds of golf at the Whistler Golf and Country Club, just 100 meter away from the Conference venue, the Westin Resort and Spa Hotel. Since we did not any golf equipment, the Pro-Shop was kind enough to give a voucher for CAD105 to play 18 holes. The package came with a full set of Nike Covert clubs and buggy.

The course is one of the best in British Columbia but they have only a short season for golf before the winter. I played with Lim from Muar who hit it longer than me but we ended up with the same score, gross 88 for a par 72 course. The rented Nike Covert set was great especially the driver and utility wood and after the game the Pro-shop manager offered to sell the set for CAD 1,100 including the Nike bag but I did not take it.

The conference that we attended also organized a golf tournament, sponsored by the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association, the fee was CAD 175 including lunch, there were about 20 flights but we did not participate! The beauty about Whistler Golf Club was that you got to see wild black bears roaming the course in the summer.

Happy golfing.

GOLF IN JAKARTA MAY 2013

The Golf Crazy group in Kuala Lumpur went to Jakarta for the 2nd successive year to play golf in Jakarta and Bogor, Indonesia. It was a learning experience in 2012 when we put up in Jakarta and spent amazing hours on the roads traveling to and from Hotel to golf courses and this year we put up a night in Bogor at the Padjadjaran Suites and Redtop Hotel in Jakarta. At least we spent more time at the golf courses and had more time in the evening for personal happy hours at the Sauna or family karaoke, whichever one prefers...

Day 1 at the Permata Sentul Golf Club

As always everybody contributed Rp 500.000 to the pool money for the 4 days golf and each day we would have winners...that was fun, if you win Rp 50,000 you could spend it on Bebek Goreng yang enak...

We stayed at the above colourful hotel and have meals at the Rumah Makan Garuda after the golf game!

This year I did not play as well as last year when I finished runner-up in the 4 days event. It was either age was catching-up or the golf skills was not there during the golfing sessions...whatever! However I did have wonderful time playing golf with new friends including cute female caddies....

We played the first game at Sentul Permata Golf Club and I was paired with Ghazali, Raja razak and Saiful and this time I managed to play a full 18 holes unlike last year when I only played 13 holes due to heavy rain. I played well enough to win the daily prize to top the 2nd nine and got Rp100.000 (RM32). My score was 91 despite having triple bogey but I played the Par 3 well with 2 birdies, 1 Par and 1 bogey.

Result :
1.Anuar Sheikh hcp 18 score 91
2. Ismail hcp 16 score 90
3. Marzuki hcp 12 score 87
4. Mahdi hcp 12 score 89
5. Abdullah hcp 16 score 91
6. Raja Razak hcp 16 score 92
7. Hamzah hcp 20 score 98
8. Ghazali hcp 16 score 95
9. Saiful hcp 18 score 96
10. Ahmad hcp 16 score 95
11. Rosli hcp 14 score 95
12. Hassan hcp 14 score 96
13.Johani hcp 14 score 97
14. Fazli hcp 16 score 99
15. Zainal hcp 16 score 101
16. Fauzi hcp 16 score 104

So everybody played well over their handicap!!!

Day 2 at Sentul Highlands Golf Club

Most of the golfers played much better except for me who still played 95 and over my handicap. Marzuki and Fauzi played to their handicap of 12 and 16 respectively, maybe they slept early when the rest in the group checked-out Bogor until sunrise...

The 2 gentlemen above were the event organizers who got priority to choose the pretty caddies at each venue!! Talking about caddies we noticed some real serious discussion between golgers and caddies during the game, we wondered what would be the subject of interest? Could it be the wrong choice of clubs, wrong reading of putting lines or just HP numbers?

Anyway result for Day 2:

1. Marzuki 84
2. Fauzi 88
3. Ghazali 90
4. Saiful 94
5. Hamzah 96
6. Raja Razak 93
7. Fadli 94
8. Abdullah 95
9. Rosli 94
10. Hassan 94
11. Ismail 96
12. Wan Mahdi 95
13. Anuar Sheikh 101
14. Ahmad 101
15. Zainal 103
16. Johany 103

Day 3 was at Emeralda Golf Club.

A very nice and beautiful golf club not far away from Jakarta and nice looking caddies too. Pairing of golfers were made to enable all the golfers have chance to play with different partners each day and only the last day pairing would be made according to standings in the Order of Merit based on accumulative scores over the last 3 days.

The 3rd day belonged to Ismail who played 5 under his hcp of 16, scoring 39 and 44 for a gross 83. Mohd Fauzi hcp 16 also played well for a 2 under score of 86.

Result:
1. Ismail 83
2. Fauzi 86
3. Hassan 87
4. Anuar 93
5. Rosli 93
6. Ahmad 92
7. Saiful 96
8. Hamzaah 98
9. Abdullah 95
10. Marzuki 93
11. Raja Razak 97
12. Fadzli 97
13. Johany 96
14. Wan Mahdi 96
15. Ghazali 101
16. Zainal 118

Day 4 at Gading Raya Golf Club

Just a short distance from Jakarta and quite near the airport was the prudent choice for the last day golfing. The course set-up is friendly to say the least and good score should be plenty. The flight of probable champion comprised of Ismail (+6), Marzuki (+13), Fauzi (+15) and Anuar (+16) and I was in the 2nd flight at +18, a huge 12 strokes behind the leader. The on form player was Fauzi who played the last two days in 2 under par.

The final day saw Fadli played incredibly well with a 7 under par score that him champion for the day and moved him up the ranking. Three others played under par too with Johany 3 under, Fauzi and Saiful with 2 under par score. Well, I played consistently 6 over par and that was about my everyday average for the 4 days golf.

Final result :

1. Ismail +9

2. Fauzi +13 

3. Saiful +15

4. Anuar +16

5. Marzuki +19

6. Raja Razak +19

7. Fadli +20

8. Abdullah +24

9. Hamzah +27

10. Mawardi +29

11. Hassan +29

12. Rosli +29

13. Ghazali +30

14. Ahmad +35

15. Johany +36

16. Zainal +70

Congratulations to eventual Champion Ismail who lead by 7 strokes going into the final round and ended up winning by 4 strokes. Now its time to take photos with the caddies!!!

This one is Mutia Chairunisha who shared her FB with me and popular with Malaysian golfers!!

Happy golfing.