By Rahul Banerji
Softly, softly hittee hittee.
Holding back may not be your favourite way of playing, especially with a golf ball nicely lined up, but it pays. At least in terms of fewer balls sacrificed to the ever hungry water gods. And in Thailand, they just lie around in wait.
So it is, even on the relatively gentle Laguna Golf Phuket. Having played the iconic Blue Canyon and missed out on Red Mountain –one of most taxing in Thailand – the Laguna course was next up.
Playing the Thai Golf Tourism Mart tournament organised by the Tourism Authority of Thailand late last month. I had to re-learn a few hard lessons first taught by the Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida. Primarily, when there is a water body around, the ball will gravitate towards it.
Keeping it steady
Now, Laguna Phuket isn’t the most trying course in the world. It has wide fairways and amiable roughs, but peril too lurks for the straying hitter. And like all honest golfers, I stray more often often than not.
The course is a par-71 18-hole layout, playing to 6,756 yards and is set in the Laguna Phuket Resort complex. It combines lagoons, coconut groves and lush greenery with undulating fairways.
The front nine is more dominated by trees, bushes and landscaping besides plenty of water, while the back nine is more sandy, and marked by coconut groves and large bunkers.
The club’s website summarises things well enough. “The design focuses the golfer on position and strategy from the tee, with well placed bunkers and water hazards.”
That line alone should have raised the red flag, but we plunged in nevertheless. Between us, our four-ball lost a ball each on every one of the first six holes before realisation struck that a degree of caution would be no bad thing.
It was a little better thereafter though picking the right lines still determined how the hole would go. The greens were true and well-contoured with run-off areas that gave us more than one option of club.
Halfway through, we came across a large water monitor. It watched our erratic, zig-zag progress with reptilian pleasure till I hit water and it lazily swam away to explore the splash. But it was almost the end, and the well-stocked clubhouse bar and restaurant came as welcome respite.
Mother Nature then laid on a spectacular thunderstorm to bring the curtains down on an already water-dominated day.
See also: Blue Canyon Country Club, Phuket: The Canyon Course
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Hard way of learning how not to lose a ball in a golf course full of water bodies and bunkers. This reminds me about my own game played for the first time sometime in 1990s at Rhino Golf Club, Guwahati, Assam. Rhino golf is a beautiful golf course full of natural water bodies, surrounded by hills and forests and so you may very often spot lot of wild animals like deer and elephants. Anyway a good lesson for anyone whoever ventures into Laguna Phuket.
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