Golfing Yogya.........

The Staroba Golf Club ( the golf section of my old boys association) made its first tour of Jogjakarta 4 years ago. We then played 3 rounds of golf at the Merapi Golf Club - the only 18-hole golf club in existence then in Jogjakarta. The golf course was not only scenic, its interesting design and layout and the difficult fast greens made the 3 days of golfing at the same course interesting and challenging.

The Merapi volcano stands majestically in the background of the fairway

We decided to pay a second visit to Jogjakarta recently as we now have the opportunity to also play at the newly reconstructed 18-hole Borobodur International Golf Resort. Located in the city of Magelang, about 1 hour drive away from Jogjakarta, this course is generally short, but made difficult and challenging by narrow fairways and tricky fast greens. There are a number of lakes to provide more challenge and trap wild drives. However it is at the same time forgiving by not penalising wild drives that cross over adjacent fairways.

The Borobodur Golf Resort with tight fairways and lakes to trap wild shots

For some of us who had already played 3 rounds of golf at the Merapi Golf Club 4 years ago, we were quite careful with our drives and putting this time. I was determined to improve on my scores and so kept my driver in the bag most of the time. This helped keep my ball on the fairways ! The memory of how difficult the putting green was 4 years ago reminded me to listen to the caddy all the time and this helped me to obtain a fairly decent score. Some of the first-timers became victims of the green for not trusting their caddies.

Nordin, Pakdokter, Norahim and our caddies

I relied on my wood-3 again to tee-off at the Borobodur Golf Resort and again played to my handicap. I have often been told that ' you must think and manage your game'. I guess I am just learning to do so and am enjoying the better scores.

Pak Zaher teeing off at the short 98 metres par-3

Pak Norahim, Pak Siraj, Pak Dato Baha abd Pak Hj Amin with their caddies

In fact some of us enjoyed the Borobodur course so much that we decided to play another round in the afternoon. And surprise! surprise!.. I carded home a score of 48/48 which is a record of sorts in my personal golfing history ( I play to a handicapof 23). This is better than my morning round of 51/49.

Pakdokter, Pak Dato Zainal, Pak Ariffin and Pak Zaher before teeing off at Borobodur

I picked up 3 prizes ( we had daily prizes as well as for the overall of the 3 day scores.....so there were many prizes to pick up) and this is a personal best. As always, during the final night prize giving dinner party, many of the golfers weent up on stage to show off their latent talents in singing and playing musical instruments.

Pakdokter collecting his prize from Pak Dato Zainal

Pak(Golf Captain) Roslan showing off his other talent

Pak Raja Ramlee crooning an evergreen accompanied by the resident band led by Pak Roslan