pakdoktergolfblog: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Cafe Bali at Seminyak...

We went back to Seminyak on the final night - and checked out Cafe Bali - which pakdokter had noticed while driving down the main street of Seminyak the previous two nights. Pakdokter was attracted to it from thefull-house crowd that filled up the outfit as well as its 'interesting' looks.

The restaurant's patrons were mostly if not completely Ozzies. In fact the construct and decor of the restaurant itself reminded pakdokter of some of the old townhouses along the streets of Melbourne.

As for the food - well pakdokter would rate them at best just average.

Closing Remarks....

PakKamardin M Top thanked everybody for taking part in this exciting Ryder's Cup format game. He promised to organise 2 more games in Indonesia in the second half of the year and a "Grand Finale" before the year end. He also congratulated the Staroba CdM for marshalling a well-organised team and pointed out his observation of how the Staroba team was well-disciplined and organised with nightly briefings and strategic meetings to challenge the Koba team.

He emphasised his belief that the Staroba team had come this time with a better team which he had expected to easily beat his team. So they had devised various strategies to reduce Staroba's advantage by changing the tee from blue to black on the second day and to the golden tee on the third day. And considering that they were still able to achieve a draw against a more superior Staroba team, he felt that his strategies had worked.

Cakap-Cakap Lepas Tak Kalah....

Pakdokter managed to capture the victorious mood of the golfers in the bus on our way home to the hotel. It was indeed a merry mood although it was just a draw....

pakKJJul was talking about how confident Barcelona was..

they were so sure of winning that they had champangne bottles with them

to celeberate their victory over MU

well pakJul, pakdokter and pakRosli had also

celebrated our victory with a bottle of 'air anggur merah'

the night before at Seminyak...

we both were 'positive' of winning......

Daily Individual Winners..

Some 14 or 15 prizes were given out to the top individual players whose pictures pakdokter managed to capture here.

?? from Koba

pakAzman scored a nett 74 on a handicap of 28....

pakMazlan Salleh....

Raszailly a.k.a Boy was also on the winning list..

a Mcoba import playing for Staroba....

Khairul Annuar..

pakHeru must have beaten pakShaber la tu....

no wonder he paid 300K rupiah to play pakShaber...

our CdM also played a nett of 73....

newcomer Husni Yusof had a fruitful outing...

pakZaher.....

pakChandra kalahkan pakAriffin Hamid?.....

pakJoni AR...

pakThomas....

overall individual winner....

pakHairul Zaini? or pakZaharul Kamal??
maaf ya pak.....pakdokter kurang pasti....

Koba Invitation, Bali, Edisi 3 : The Final Result ...a Draw.....

Pakdokter was surprised by the loud roar and clappings as pakdokter walked into the coffeehouse and several Staroba golfers rushed and hugged pakdokter for the victory pakdokter had against pakMesha. Only then did pakdokter realised that before our flight ( which was the last to come back) finished our game, Staroba was trailing Koba by 2 points. So both our winning points levelled the two teams into a draw - a similar feat that was achieved as in Jakarta....

the team officials scrutinising the scores....

the 2 teams shared the 100 million rupiah prize money...

Aksi-Aksi Hari Ketiga....

Below were some short video-clips of the 'actions' of the third game at the New Kuta Golf Course

pakShaber, the Staroba Captain at the tee...

pakAriffin Hamid...

pakHeru bidded to play against the Staroba Captain.......

pakChandra...

the par-3 hole was something like 200 yards long...

pakdokter 'unashamedly' used the driver against the strong wind

and reached the left apron of the green and got a 'par'....

below pakAzman and his 'antiques'....

ya....'tarik pak.....masuk gaung.....'.....

Koba Invitation Edisi 3, Bali: Pakdokter's Rematch against Mesha...

The Staroba CdM had printed out the course layout of the New Kuta Golf Course on Saturday night and had distributed a copy to every player of the team. That was how serious we all took this competition! Pakdokter feels it would have been better if the team had come 2 days earlier and played one practise round each at the two golf courses. What about that, Sir?...

As reported in the previous blog, pakdokter played to a handicap of 34 against pakMesha's 31. So pakdokter received 3 strokes from pakMesha in this individual matchplay.

PakMesha and pakErikIndradewa must have thought that pakdokter and pakAzman would be chicken-feed on this final day based on our two earlier performances. They partied at one of the Bali clubs until 4 am in the morning and almost arrived at the golf course late for the tee-off. Pakdokter had had an uninterrupted sleep for once and was detemined to finally make amends against pakMesha over the previous two close losses in Jakarta and Bandung.

We teed off from hole 7 and pakMesha sent his first tee way to the left, bounced off the track and looked like it went over the wall into the OB territory. Pakdokter played safe and hit way to the right which the caddy reassured was on safe ground. PakMesha second tee again went straight into OB land to the left again. Pakdokter felt that it was a good start and would capitalised on pakMesha's severe 'hangover.'

Lucky for pakMesha, his first ball had actually hit the wall and came down on to the edge of the fairway. He hit the second over the stream in front of the green and was on for 3. Pakdokter hit a wedge to go before the stream but sent the 3rd into water and lost the 1st hole with an 8 against pakMesha's 5.

Pakdokter again lost the 8th hole long par-3 and went 2-down and thought history will repeat itself.

Pakdokter forgot to record our score-card on camera but in summary pakdokter can recollect that upon going into the 2nd Nine pakdokter started winning hole after hole and led all the way to reach dommy 4 when we teed off at hole No.1. Poor pakMesha was really struggling with the 'hangover' - at one stage while waiting at one of the par-3 holes due to the 'traffic jam' he slept and snored on the bench at the hut.

PakMesha tried very hard to at least square the match with pakdokter - he took hole No. 1 but lost it when pakdokter squared him at hole No.2 to go 3-up with 2 to go.

So pakdokter's tally against pakMesha is now 1-2 in Mesha's favour. And pakdokter managed to collect most of the rupiahs pakdokter lost the day before.

PakAzman was also able to capitalise on pakErik's lack of sleep and came home with a victory of the same margin as pakdokter.

the flight in front of pakdokter...

pakAriffin, pakChandra, pakHeru and pakShaber...

pakdokter, pakMesha, pakErik and pakAzman..

pakdokter and Ira...

hole 6 par-3....

.a large green surrounded by sand....

lovely villas along the course...

the Uluwatu Peninsula from one of the greens...

the 'aspiring' champion...

After the game all four of us made a pact to renew our agreement to play against each other again in future meets on the agreed terms.......

New Kuta Golf Course at Dreamland Bali.....

The New Kuta Gof Course is the newest golf course in Bali and had hosted the Indonesian Open 3 or 4 years ago when it was newly opened. Situated on an area perched on a high cliff south of the Jimbaran district towards the Uluwatu peninsula, it is a links course with narrow fairways, thick rough and hazards and strong winds from the ocean. To make matters worse, the Koba organisers had also decided to play the game from the gold tee ( equivalent to black tee) which made the course very much longer....

There were three competitions being organised that morning - apart from the Koba-Staroba 40 golfers, there were 60 golfers playing in the Kalimantan Cup and another 40 golfers playing in the Bali-Japan competition. So it was a full-house with a short-gun start at 7.30 am.

the clubhouse was so busy....

caddies organised the bags...

waiting to go to the respective holes..

testing the green speed of 9....

pakAminJidon looked well after a good

dose of pain-killers the night before...

Motivation in the Wee Hours....

We had to wake up early again for the Sunday match at the New Kuta Golf Course. Pakdokter had given pakAminJidon adequate pain-killers at the Saturday night briefing in order to minimise the risk of being woken up again as in the previous two nights. Furthermore pakdokter wanted to have a good 4 to 5 hours sleep before waking up at 2.30am to watch the Barcelona MU match in the finals of the European Champions League Final. Thankfully, pakdokter did get the sleep and managed to watch the whole football game from start to finish. We went down to the bus at 5 am and headed for the New Kuta Golf Course at 5.30 am. We were scheduled to tee-off on a short-gun start at 7.30 am.

In the bus, an inspired pakRosliKhan decided to give a pep talk to motivate the team. This spoilt pakdokter's attempt at stealing a few more winks in the bus. So pakdokter video-taped a part of his early morning 'sermon'.......

yang suruh pakRosli baca doa tu was pakdokter.....

terkejut juga dia......!

Samaya Breeze Restaurant @ Seminyak...

The group requested the CdM for an earlier briefing as most wanted to go out that night. Pakdokter's partner had identified the No.1 restaurant in Bali as listed in the internet site and made a booking for 7.30 pm.

The Breeze Restaurant and Spa @ Samaya was located next to the famous Ku De Ta Restaurant which pakdokter had tried a few years ago. It used to be the top restaurant then but was currently listed at No.14. So we had high expectations for the 'Breeze'....

The property was undergoing some renovation works. From the front lobby, we were taken on a buggy to the beach-front restaurant which was some 1 to 2 km ride away. The ambience was great - very similar to Ku De Ta - with rolling waves and pleasant breeze blowing to cool down the atmosphere. But the food was average - pakdokter would anytime vote for Chandi in terms of food......