The Bukit Darmo Golf Club....

Bukit Darmo is about 45 minutes from our hotel, located in a residential suburb quite unlike that of the Tropicana Resort in Malaysia.

The golf course is rather flat and is bordered by many grand residential bungalows and highrise apartments. It is designed by Jack Nicklaus Jr. so it has features similar to the senior Nicklaus courses.

PakRoslan arranged the composition of players in the 3 flights based on scores from Taman Dayu as well as taking into consideration that there was going to be a Ryder's Cup format competition between the 6 STAROBA golfers against the 5 from the rest of the world.

pakZul, pakHyder and pakdokter......

Pakdokter was put in a flight of 3 which included pakZulkifli Rauf, and pakHyder Ali. All of us were alloted a handicap of 26 based on our Taman Dayu scores.

bungalows along the fairways...

As pakdokter had by now somewhat settled down, his game was much better and managed to accumulate a stableford score of 36. This was enough to help pakdokter achieve a 2-day 7th position from the overall of 11 players. Pakdokter also won the ball-sweep for the 2nd Nine with a score of 19 points. PakZulkifli Rauf scored 38 stableford points. PakHyder promised to make amends when we meet again at the next venue in Medan in April.

nita, pakdokter's and pakHyder's caddie....

Pakdokter had a very young caddie of 19 years old by the name of Yusnita or Nita for short. She had finished SMA ( high school) a year ago and had become a caddy for 6 months. Most of the female caddies at Bukit Darmo are not very good with their reading of the green. In fact the better caddies at this club would be the full time male caddies.

Nita told pakdokter that the caddies actually do not get a monthly salary. They are given 7500 rupiahs (about RM$2) a day for bus fare whether they come for work or not. During the weekends they earn 30,000 rupiah ( about RM$10) for every round of golf they caddied. And they take all the tips they earn from the golfer. During weekday they are not paid for the round of golf they caddie (the club takes all the caddie fee charged to the golfer) The caddie only earn the tip from the golfer. So the tip they earn from Malaysian golfers ( usually between 50,000 to 100,000 rupiah) is big money for them. No wonder they are so happy to caddy us!

So the Indonesian caddies who work at Tasik Puteri, Glenmarie etc are getting a better deal. They earn a regular salary, has medical insurance and earn tips above and over all these.

In fact pakdokter's caddy at the RSGC does not have such a great deal either. He gets no monthly salary. The club pays him RM15.50 for 9 hole and RM35 for 18 hole and he takes all the tip that pakdokter or any other golfer gives him. And he does not necessarily get to caddy everyday. He has to wait in queue for his turn because the demand for caddy is not there all the time.

pakHyder driving his ball onto the fairway...

pakZul doing a practice swing.....

Index 1 par 5.....

dinner at the Kartika restaurant....



Dinner was at an Indonesian Restaurant, the Kartika. Prizes for the winners were given away and pakHaji Amin was the overall champion for the 2 day event taking home the winning prize of 1 million rupiah. PakTengku Azman, the 'baby' of the group was overall 2nd and was very happy to earn 700,000 rupiah. PakTengku had instantly become a convert of the SIGC and has announced that he will be joining us in the Jakarta Tour in July.

In the Ryder Cup competition the STAROBA group managed to defeat the rest of the world.

pakHaji Amin became a millionaire....the overall champion of the Surabaya Retreat 2009...




pakdokter with his 'winnings"