Golf Marathon Thailand (111): The Siam Country Club ) Old Course....

Friday, 26th March 2010

Pakdokter suspected that pakdokter may have 'over-indulged' in the Thai massage on Wednesday night which sapped out too much of pakdokter's energy to the point that pakdokter could only play about 15 holes before colllapsing against pakAzman in the game at the Plantation course. So pakdokter and pakZahardin decided to persuade pakAzman to go for 2 hours of massage on Thursday evening hoping that it would take out some of his stamina and give pakdokter a small chance of giving him a fight at the Old Course.

Pakdokter had also played at this Old Course last year when pakdokter came to play in the "Quad" tournament as a team member of the RSGC. So pakdokter was also hoping that with a little bit of local knowledge, pakdokter may have a slight chance of beating him. After all pakAzman has continously 'boasted' that he had always beaten pakdokter on all overseas turf. To that pakdokter must agree and pakdokter warned him that if pakdokter were to win this time, it would be a 'breaking news' on pakdokter's golfblog.......

Friday morning turned out to be cloudy with a slight drizzle and a strangely cold breeze blowing across the Gulf of Siam ( we learnt later that Thailand was hit by the cold front that swept from China). The temperature of about 17 degrees celcius, the spray of light rain and gushes of cold wind with the dark clouds in the sky gave a surreal feeling that as if we were playing at the Old Course of the St Andrews of Scotland! Pakdokter tried to capture this atmosphere on camera but the few pictures below were the best that came out of pakdokter's photographic effort.

The Siam Country Club Old Course hosted the LPGA 2010 tournament in February where Ai Miyazato came out triumphant. It has 2 Nines and playing from the white tee the course measured 6534 yards. ( The LPGA ladies played from the white tees too). We teed-off from the 10th tee.

the tee from the 10th hole....

pakAzman and pakZahardin all geared up for the rain...

pakdokter wore Michelle Wee's colour....

pakZahardin was happy with his caddy....

our three 'angels'...

see how excited pakAzman was when his putt almost went in

from a long distance.....

it was a long par-3....212 yards

pakAzman used the driver and scored a par!

what a swing.....

the 'tiger' in pakAzman could not be stopped....

Hole 10 was a par-5 measuring 536 yards. Both pakAzman and pakZahardin hit good drives with their driver. Pakdokter used a wood-5 which sent the ball just about 10 yards short of the other two. (Pakdokter decided to give up on pakdokter's driver because it did not work at all for pakdokter during the previous two games.) The 'tiger' in pakAzman sent another long second shot which almost reached the apron on the left and with a great chip over a bunker he easily got a par on the 10th hole to go 1 up against pakdokter. He fumbled the next par-4 index-1 hole with a 9 to give pakdokter a chance to square the game with pakdokter's score of 7. PakAzman took the next 2 holes to go 2 up but pakdokter levelled the game by winning holes 14 and 15. With a par at the next par-3 hole 16, pakdokter went back 1 down but drew level by winning the 17th hole. And pakdokter was lucky at the par-5 18th hole to return a score of 7 against pakAzman's 9 and walked away with 3 balls for the 1st Nine.

Pakdokter felt that perhaps the 'magic' of the Thai massage on pakAzman the night before had worked and pakdokter was hoping to finally overcome the 'overseas jinx' all this while against pakAzman.

PakAzman has always been strong in the par-5's. He has strong drives and strong 2nd shots - the advantage from his height, strength and age. He bogeyed the par-5 hole No. 1 against pakdokter's 8. But pakdokter drew level with a par at hole No.2. We squared the 3rd hole and pakdokter scored another par at hole No. 4 to go 1 up. Pakdokter again took hole 5 to go 2 up and maintained 2 up at hole No. 6. PakAzman came back and won holes No. 7 and No. 8. So it was left to the last hole No. 9 to determine who would win the overall game. If pakdokter can level with him at hole 9, pakdokter would win with 3 balls and post the 'breaking news' in pakdokter's blogspot! If pakdokter were to loose this last hole, pakAzman would win 6 balls on this Nine ( we always automatically doubled-up on the 2nd Nine in all our games) and take home only 3 balls from pakdokter!

But the winner would have to buy the lunch.....and pakAzman had declared at the beginning of the match that he wanted to have lobster and crabs for lunch because he was confident he could take away at least 10 balls from pakdokter that day......heh...heh.....heh....

Pakdokter's drive with the 5-w00d only reached about 160 yards but pakAzman's drive with his brand new R9 Taylor Made driver went zooming past 200 yards. Pakdokter took another two iron shots to reach the front apron to match PakAzman who also reached the apron but behind pakdokter in 3. PakAzman chipped beautifully to the top end pin and the ball rolled and stopped about one foot from the hole. Pakdokter used the putter but underestimated the uphill speed and had the ball stopped about 10 feet away from the hole.

Pakdokter had to hole-in the putt to get a bogey and square the 2nd Nine to clinch pakdokter's first ever overseas victory against pakAzman. It was indeed a daunting task for pakdokter and after a long study pakdokter putted from that 10 foot distance only to miss the hole by just one roll!

Pakdokter told pakAzman to pick up his ball as it was only about half-a-putter length left and to let him continue with his winning streak. But strangely pakAzman insisted that he wanted to putt in from that very short distance and he was obviously putting it way off target. To his surprise the ball rolled down the steep slope ( which he forgot to take into consideration) and went into the hole. With that he won the game with 3 balls from pakdokter but had to top up with another 10 balls for our lunch of lobster, prawns, fish and crabs.......

PakAzman ....pakAzman......