Golf Borneo
Sutera Golf/Spa Megaresort, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Crack! Splash. Those two sounds are the first that I hear on arrival at the driving range. They signal that another golfer has just hooked a ball into the moat.
Soon I am emulating that feat and feeling bad about the waste of equipment. Happily, however, the balls are low-density, which means they float and can be retrieved.
So, as the two Aussies (both called Andrew) who run the course might say, “no worries”. After I have had a blast at the range, Perth product Andrew Farmers, 23, rounds me up and chauffeurs me in a buggy to the 27-hole championship course, which also offers night-golfing, should that take your fancy.
All palm trees, lakes and undulation, the course borders the South China Sea and embodies my idea of what a desert island should look like. Except that it is part of the 384-acre Sutera megaresort on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Malaysian-Borneo state of Sabah. Farmers describes the course, which boasts the biggest bunker I have seen – about the size of a tennis court - as “picturesque but lots of trouble”.
Are they not always? I have never understood why people play golf to relax. In my experience, the game is about as relaxing as missing a flight.
Then again, the last time I played was in England on a vast nettle-infested stretch of rough flanked by cliffs. Because of the wind every shot turned into a hook – the trick was to slice hard and hope.
Teeing up, Farmers executes a graceful shot that sails lazily for about a kilometre and then lazily veers left and lands straight on the green. Five shots later, I am there too.
Behind me, the fairway bears my scars. Farmers tweaks my technique gently, telling me to bend from the waist not the knees and to stand further away from the ball.
Subsequently, one shot I make proves to be a divot-chiselling lob into the bushes. The next, a retry, fizzes down the fairway.
“You just have to work out what you did differently with the first and second shots,” Farmers says. Quite. I already knew that your initial alignment can make all the difference between success and humiliation – what I hadn’t realised was how hard it is to get it right.
So too can be “getting into the zone” or maintaining the so-called “iceberg profile”. “Golf is very psychological,” Farmers says.
He cites how German maestro Bernhard Langer suffers from “the yips”, which means losing your grip and fluffing repeatedly on the putting green. Langer has been known to take five putts before hearing the satisfying rattle. “That’s got to scar you psychologically,” he says.
He adds that everyone, no matter how experienced, chokes putts and generally makes duff shots. “The moment you think you’ve conquered it, you’re kidding yourself,” he says.
Few would argue except perhaps Tiger Woods, whom Farmers describes as “way ahead of anyone else”. The reason: he is the complete golfer who can benchpress one-and-a-half times his own weight and play percentages successfully: when in a tight spot, instead of making a desperate hack for the hole, he plays a safety shot, lobbing back onto the fairway.
I never know whether I am about to belt the ball so that it blazes down the freeway, or to hack a slab of grass further than the projectile. Farmers tells me I have pretty good hand-eye co-ordination for an occasional golfer. Some amateurs cannot hit the ball at all, which means they must spend remedial time on the range.
I can understand how someone might miss completely. During the course of our session, I execute an air shot myself.
That said, as Farmers points out with a grin, how hard can making contact be? The ball is not moving. Think of other sports such as tennis where it does not just wait at your feet.
The key lesson I learn is not to prod when trying to escape from a bunker. Thump the ball hard. That does the trick, preventing those gut-wrenching moments when the thing rolls back to where it started from in the sand.
Once, from the tee, I manage to land the ball in front of a fallen coconut, making direct progress impossible. Another time, after a violent slice, the ball rockets towards some other golfers, who are mercifully saved by a palm tree whose branches it rattles and ricochets around. Eventually, outdoing either stroke, I hoist a ball into the South China Sea, much to Farmers’ amusement.
At least it travelled and lifted. My putts are mostly average because I struggle to read the degree of slant and “break” successfully, which means the ball veers crazily, gaining so much momentum that it rolls from one end of the green to the other.
My finest putt comes at the final hole where, in a case of “quitter’s luck”, I sink a 15-footer. What a buzz.
Consistency, Farmers says again and again, is just a question of repetition. Doubtless, if I practise like Tiger Woods or Sabah product VJ Singh, who both put in about 12 hours a day, in no time my game will be “birdie, birdie, birdie”.
My only gripe with golf is its current “obesogenic” flavour. Thanks to the cart, which admittedly reduces aggravation, keeps traffic flowing and is good for business, the average visitor takes minimal exercise. I feel only a touch more puffed than I do after, say, peeling an orange. Being rather larger than I ought to be and in danger of going up yet another trouser size, I mull over how I am to get further exercise today. I eventually and maybe somewhat lazily opt for a lengthy, high-repetition-rate bout of lifting half a kilo of liquid and glass up and down, in the lovely and well-appointed club-house, after which I feel as fit as a proverbial fiddle.
Whilst in Thailand, why not visit one of the country’s currently best three beach destinations:
Koh Lao Liang: http://www.andamanadventures.com/kohlaoliang.shtml
Ao Nang: http://www.andamanadventures.com/ao_nang.shtml
Railay/Tonsai: http://www.andamanadventures.com/railay-tonsai.shtml
About the Author
Runs Andaman Sky Co., Ltd, specialising in climbing and diving trips to Thailand’s best beach destinations.
"Trekking amongst the Akha people" Rachel_john's photos around Muang Sing, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
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