The Hillview Golf Club has two 18's, the A & B Nines are called the Open Course and the C&D Nines are called the Master Course. For the first day we were made to play the B and D Nines, both being the more difficult Nines of the whole course!
The B Nine measures a total of 3326 yards from the blue tee and the D Nine measures 3244 yards making a grand total of 6570 yards for the 18 holes. Most of the fairways were narrow with O.B.s on both sides of the fairways. And some of them had lakes to contend with.....
All of us had our handicaps adjusted - taking the corresponding USGA handicap index to our home club handicap , all of us had our handicaps reduced to 75% of the USGA handicap index. Pakdokter's home club handicap of 25 is equivalent to the USGA handicap index of 22.8. 75% of that gave pakdokter a handicap of 17 for this competition.
Pakdokter was in a flight with Mr Quah Kim Yew of SICC ( handicap 14), Mr Allen Yam of HKGC ( handicap 13) and Mr Viraj Chiengsong ( handicap 13). Our stableford scores at the end of the game reflected the degree of difficulty of the course.
We started from hole 15 of the D Nine and pakdokter collected several 'double-pars' in the first nine holes. Feeling exasperated made worse by the hot weather worse than in KL or Singapore, pakdokter decided to stop at the drink hut and started to have a round of cold 'Tsingtao beer'. And Voila! pakdokter got a par for the next hole and managed more respectable scores for the rest of the remaining 8 holes.
Pakdokter came home with 21 stableford points playing to the handicap of 17. In pakdokter's flight, KC Quah from Singapore and Allen Yam of Hong Kong played quite a decent game. Poor Mr Viraj of Bangkok struggled all the way. But we all had fun despite the brutal treatment we got from the course. Mr Quah told pakdokter that pakdokter should start drinking right from the start in order to deliver better scores.....
Pakdokter demoralised spirit perked up a little when pakdokter discovered that pakdokter's buddies from KL did equally bad. Mr Peter O'Malley who played to a handicap of 14 came home with 17 points, Mr Micheal Landak (the porcupine) who played to a handicap of 17 obtained 15 points and Mr Liam 'Brandy' who played to a handicap of 18 only managed 13 points......
Pakdokter told them if they still play like that on the second day, they will definitely not make the cut for the next QUAD.....
Mr Viraj Chiengsong, Mr Allen Yam, pakdokter, Mr Quah Kim Chew...
even these nice girls did not help pakdokter's game...
pakdokter's buddies worrying about whetherthey will be considered for QUAD 2012 in Thailand....
from left: Peter O'Malley, Liam Brandy and Micheal Landak....
