Phoenix Gold Golf & Country Club

I haven’t played Phoenix Golf Course for some time so the test will be facing the redesigned new front nine as it starts to settle in.

Part of the new management initiatives was new carts from Club car and they are a welcome addition to the golf club. Also a new uniform has been implemented from the old green ones and has moved the caddies into a sharper looking dress code. It’s a nice purple colour and quite  attention getting.

The club house is still as big as ever and signage around the club house still shows the Kings Cup event that they hosted earlier in the year. The club house is certainly ready for the next big things that they are planning for.

 

 

One this day we played Lakes and Ocean and started on the Lakes, the newly redesigned 9 holes. Off to the  first hole a fairly straight forward short par 4 with trees down each side and a tricky little chip shot in, with new bunkering on the left hand side and a big drop off on the right towards the water.  The greens are great so any mistakes were ours.

The second is a brilliant little par three with a two tiered green, make sure you leave yourself on the right tier if you want to make an easy par !!  The 5^th hole is a drive-able par 4, and the green has hollow running through the middle so unless you are precise with your iron shot in you have a difficult putt. The pin today was front right and about 3 feet from the edge of the green, quite a difficult pin placement, maybe the green keeper was having a bad day and wanted to punish us !!

  

The next is a really spectacular par five where the long drivers can go across the double water carry leaving a short second shot. For those not so long, there is plenty of room left of the water to place your ball and make 5 the conventional way.

For the rest of the holes on this lakes nine are fairly plain, but as you get to the green complexes, they are quite undulating and if you haven’t got your ball on the correct tier, two putting is quite difficult.

As we made the turn, there was a sigh of relief as the Ocean nine hasn’t had the green changed and is more like what most golfers are used to. This Ocean nine in my opinion is the best of the 3 nines at Phoenix. The holes has a mixture of up and down hill doglegs left and right and plenty of bunkers to protect the shortcuts.

Probably my favourite hole on this Lakes nine is the 9^th hole. With the tee looking over the bay towards Bang Saray, it’s a downhill Par 5 that doglegs left from about the 150 yard marker in. Your drive needs to hug the right hand side if you want to get to the green in two, as usual my drive heads left and the tall trees protecting the corner blocks my path, I am forced to position my ball near the 100 yard peg and wedge in for my regulation par.

After the game we head to the huge locker room facilities for a shower then onto the restaurant overlooking the Lakes 9^th Hole and practise putting green. The restaurant has a great range of western and Asian dishes, and with over 10 beers available there should be one that drains your sorrows away !!

Phoenix is one of the closest golf courses to the centre of Pattaya and should be on your list of courses to play while in town.