Siam Country Club Plantation Course
I had the pleasure the other day to play the “Best Maintained Course in Asia Pacific” as voted by members at the annual Asia Pacific Golf Summit in Brunei last week. This is the second year in a row this course as received this award.
Now I know your thinking where did he play, some new course in China, or the courses in Vietnam that have been springing up over the last 3 or 4 years.
No, none of these but in Pattaya, Thailand
Siam Country Club ( Plantation course) has been joint host to the season opening event on the LPGA tour over the last 4 years. I played here on Friday 21st December, on arrival there was 2 coaches in the car park and about 70 vehicles, so I was expecting a slow day.
The facilities at the course is simply world class, from the locker rooms to the practice facilities, you would think that that you are playing in a tournament. It is interesting to note that the practice range isn’t open to the public just to hit range balls. When I asked the managing director about this he told me “ we don’t need the wear and tear on the grass, its not worth it, we would prefer to keep the surfaces for the players utilizing the golf course”
Now here is a golf course that is interested in creating great playing surfaces and having players have a great experience, rather than chasing the all elusive $
Each time I have played this course, at various times during the year, the conditioning is perfect, greens run at about 8.5 – 9 on the stymp, the fairways are prepared perfectly and the bunkers are always raked to perfection. There is nothing I can blame my bad round on.
As we played,. My playing partner noted that even though there are quite some elevation changes around the course, there was an even coverage of grass everywhere, no bare patches, this had me looking over the next 9 holes to look for imperfections.
I have to say I spent 9 holes looking for criticisms but after my round, I could not fault the course at all, and this is with 150 players that had played in front of us, no spike marks or pitch marks on the greens!
Sure I could complain about pin positions being too difficult or the course being too long, but if you play from the correct tee colours for your handicap then you will really appreciate the hard work that goes into maintain a golf course like Siam Country Club Plantation.
Next time want to golf in Pattaya and if you have some spare time, make a tee time and go and enjoy this course, it will certainly make you look differently at your home course when you go home