Mountain Shadow Golf Club
Mountain Shadow.
Our Irish friends are out playing at Mountain Shadow. I haven’t been here for about 3 months and was keen for a game.
From the initial impressions, the course is on the improve from when I was here last. The greens are running about 8 on the stympmeter which is a good speed for the average golfer, and the fairways have a good even coverage on them.
The green sizes here are smaller that the other golf courses in Pattaya, only a couple of the green has vicious slopes on them, the rest are generally flat and make for a enjoyable game.
At this course, the fairways are quite narrow and there are minimal fairways bunkers, it’s the trees that line the fairways that cause the golfers problems. This course was cut from a fruit orchid and the fairways are still lined with many trees bearing fruit. The caddies grab the sand rake and pull down the fruit that’s ready to eat. Also there are palm trees throughout the course, and trying to hit a ball through them is fraught with danger. It seems every time when I try to hit a ball through the palm trees, the tree catches the ball and sends it straight to the ground, so I am faced with the same shot again !
The group I played with complained about the lies off the mown fairway, the rough is either long and you cant always move the ball onto the green, or you get sandy lies and have to hit a career shot to put in on the putting surface, hey, what do you expect when you hit it in the rough I told them ?, if you want a smooth surface everywhere you play, go and play bowls !
Well after they focused on hitting in the fairways they were rewarded with great lies and the opportunity to hit some greens in regulation. While Mountain Shadow is not a long Thailand golf course, you are rewarded for shots in the fairway, some of the fairways only measure 15 metres across in some places so straight driving is a must to shoot a good score.
My two favourite holes here are both par 5’s. The 3rd is a straight away hole and for your second shot for the long hitter you can either lay up for your second leaving a 120 yard 3rd shot or you can have a go for 2 on, but there is water in play short, left and right for any miscues.
Once on the putting green, you could be faced with a putt of up to 30 meters if you didn’t hit the right club ! Its one on the narrowest longest greens I have seen for a while.
The other favourite is the 11th Hole. Here you have a split fairway to the green, going to the left side is a shorter route but the fairways is much narrower, but you are rewarded with a green that you hit straight up towards, if you take the right side fairway, it’s a bit longer, not as much trouble and your third shot is to a green that would be 40 meters wide and 10 metres deep. For me I always take the left side as it gives me an easier third shot to a green that looks like it has buried elephants under it !