My Thai Golf-The build up has now officially started.

So November is almost over and we're closing in fast on another Christmas, and beyond that, the big tour.

Our twelve days of competition golf in Hua Hin start in mid-February.
Who will be crowned Champion Golfer and winner of the Thailand Trophy in 2014?

It looks like 26 of us will be giving it our best shot. Here is our schedule;

Monday 17th February-Palm Hills GC for practice day one. A day of friendly challenges.

I guess it will be the usual fashion parade on our first big day together. There's always one!

Tuesday 18th February-For the really keen ones it's a trip to the local driving range.
The rest of us will stay by the pool.

Wednesday 19th February-Second and final practice day at Black Mountain.

Whenever we are waiting to tee off at Black Mountain the buzz amongst the lads is electric.

Thursday 20th February-
Round One of the Thailand Trophy at Banyan. Single Stableford, full handicap.
Winner is the highest aggregate scorer over all four rounds of the competition.

Despite my advice about avoiding the snakes at Banyan Mr. Robinson decided to go looking for one earlier this year.

Friday 21st February-Round Two at Springfield

Springfield's 18th hole has an island green which can be just a little intimidating. A cracking par five to finish.

Saturday 22nd February-Nine hole mini competition on the Par 3 course at Black Mountain for those who can drag themselves away from the pool.

Great fun and a break from the big competition.

Sunday 23rd February- Rest day for most but a few will decide to organise a game.

Monday 24th February-Round Three at Majestic Creek. This is when it all starts getting very tense.

Water does feature in a big way on several holes at Majestic Creek. A few extra balls may be required.

Tuesday 25th February-
Final Thailand Trophy round at Black Mountain. The top four will play together as the final group.
There tends to be a bit of sledging in the coach on route to the course which does spice it all up a bit.
That all stops once the first shot is struck.
There are usually five or six in with a chance of winning and the same number trying to avoid finishing last.

Some of us tend to find that the Black Mountain experience can be very tiring.

Once we are back at the Hotel we have an evening of great food, celebration and prize presentation but before we leave Black Mountain the winners pose for a few photos.

2013-Simon [The winner], Mike [Runner up], JC [Third and also King Rabbit] and Jan [4th]

Wednesday 26th February- A day of recovery and for a few, departure.

Thursday 27th February-Pairs Competition at Royal Hua Hin. Draw for partners.

It's not unusual to get a few spectators at Royal Hua Hin but this lot weren't interested earlier this year. Siesta time!

Friday 28th February-Our final round together is a team competition at Sea Pine, a links course of sorts with the last three holes adjacent to the beach. Super venue which is owned by the Thai Army.

In 2014 this will be the last chance for one of our better players to show off his swing. Nice pose Alan.

Before I go here's some sound advice from our 2011 Thailand Trophy Champion pictured below.

Frosty says;
When you buy a new pair of golf shoes for your holiday always check that you have a left and a right shoe before you leave the shop. Then check again when you are lacing them at home, and it's always worth another look before packing them in your suitcase. [I suppose you've guessed the rest]
Then when you unpack in Thailand you won't find that your brand new pair of £100 golf shoes are both for the same foot.

I should add that 'boy wonder' doesn't usually make silly mistakes like this.
However, having made one major error, he thought it would be a good idea to check that he had brought all his clubs.
No problem there. All 16 of them were safe in his golf bag!

Switched on or what! Our 2011 winner has been likened to a coiled spring! What do you think?

 Information on all the courses we will be playing can be found by putting 'Hua Hin golf courses' in your search engine.
All these courses are within a 25 minute drive of the town centre.

My Thai Golf-Dreaming of Koh Samui and Santiburi

Once I'd played at Santiburi the first time I was desperate to get back and have another go. From the moment I first walked into the clubhouse I knew I was in for a serious dose of the WOW factor.

I stood on the verandah in the restaurant, looked out and tried to take it all in.

What a setting and undoubtedly some of the most spectacular views I have experienced at any golfing venue I have ever been to since I took up the game 44 years ago. Simply breathtaking!

Nice backdrop for a practice putting green! The greens here are undulating, quick and challenging.

Now for the big challenge of playing another of Thailand's top five golf courses.

You've got to be straight if you want to score well. There are a lot of sloping fairways and most of them feed into water or thickets of trees so hitting Driver is not always the best option.
As the caddies will keep telling you, 'Caddie know best!'

Suddenly this little gem of a par three appears in front of you. Don't miss the green long and left!

Some of the views at the highest points on the back nine will make your eyes water.

It's no wonder all the caddies are so happy and friendly here. What a place to work!

Have I grabbed your interest? Are you going to Koh Samui sometime soon?
Santiburi Golf Club is only fifteen minutes drive from all the main resortson the island and you can rent a good set of clubs when you book your golf.

Just don't leave Koh Samui wishing you'd played this wonderful course. You will regret it if you do.
The guy who can sort everything out for you is Greg Lester, a Brit from Surrey who sounds like an Aussie.
Check out Greg's website www.samuigolf.net

There's no end to Greg's omni-competence.
Holidays, golf, accommodation, island tours, airport transfers etc etc.  Whatever you need Greg will sort it.
He can even arrange a golfing partner for you so you really don't have any excuses about not playing here.

When you're scanning the home page on Greg's website you'll find a link to a fantastic tour.
A 14 day escorted golf trip that starts with two rounds on Koh Samui, has a stop over in Khao Sok National Park on the mainland for one round and ends with four rounds in Phuket. It sounds like a dream trip and one that I fancy a crack at sometime soon.
I'll let Greg's video link paint the picture for you. Have a look at this.
http://www.samuigolf.net/14day_13nights_presentation_video.php

See you next week.

My Thai Golf-What a brilliant idea-Part Two

Our five day tour to the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi continues;

Day Three-
For me Remembrance Day [11/11] will forever bring back memories of our trip to Kanchanaburi in 2012. So many Allied Soldiers and civilian labourers died building the Death Railway for the Japanese in 1942-43. Ofcourse there were many survivors who have all had to carry the burden of witnessing such evil cruelty for the rest of their lives.

Today is the 12 November 2013. I've been giving a lot of thought over the last few days, not only to those brave souls that died in such desperate circumstances, but also to those who endured that living hell and made it home, only to live on wondering why they had been spared.

To truly understand what some of the Allied POWs were put through you have to visit Hellfire Pass, about an hour's drive north west of Kanchanaburi. Here over 400 lives were lost excavating rock and soil so that track could be layed in a cutting some 75 metres long and 17.5 metres deep. Prisoners used basic tools, working around the clock, to complete this stretch which was literally hacked out of the side of small mountain. All soil and rock had to be carried away from the site using baskets. The heat must have been unbearable with so little air under the thick canopy of trees. Daytime temperatures regularly exceeded 35C and a lot of work was done during a particularly heavy monsoon season.

Hellfire Pass got it's name because at night those working above the cutting could see down into what they considered to be the jaws of hell. What they could see was in fact other prisoners working by oil lamp at the the rock face at the bottom of the Pass. Note the tree now growing in the middle of the Pass.[see below]

In 1988 the Australian Government built the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum as a testament to those who died and those that survived. The plaque below can be found in the Pass. The museum is by the car park.

If you visit Hellfire Pass don't make the mistake that we did. We should have gone into the museum first before venturing down the 300 steps that take you to the bottom of the Pass. We would have understood more and we could have hired some headphones from the museum that would have allowed us to stop at each of the viewing platforms that are built amongst those 300 steps, and listened to the commentary that describes each part of the construction. We would also have known what to expect and bought extra water before our trek.

We had no idea what we were doing when we headed straight down those steps in a searing 40C heat.
Thankfully our driver, Simnot, decided to accompany us and when he realised how desperate we were for water he virtually ran back to the top and fetched a load. A schoolboy error on our part.
Just so pleased Simnot came along.

We had walked down to the cutting once. A journey that many POWs made more than once every day for weeks on end and without Simnot to rescue them.

Earlier that day, on the sound advice of our Hotel manager, we had been to Saiyok National Park, a few miles north of the pass. The River Kwai runs through the park and presents you with some dramatic photo opportunities, particularly from the suspension bridge that was recently built there.

Many local people live on houseboats moored along the river.

Other houseboats travel up and down the river pulled by motor boats.
You can take your own journey on one of these houseboats.

 This fella looked like he was doing a bit of fishing from a moving houseboat. Very brave!

Water pours into the river from mountain streams creating stunning waterfalls.

It really is a beautiful part of Thailand.

After Hellfire Pass we were all drained. What a day.

Day Four-Nichigo Golf and Country Club

The drive from Pung Waan Resort to Nichigo was about 30 minutes. The course was in great condition with some very challenging holes. There are 27 holes on the complex so three sets of nine holes. Plenty of water to negotiate but undoubtedly the most difficult part was the greens. They were very quick and virtually unreadable, even for my caddie. No wonder, as I discovered later, she was only 14 and this was her first full round as a caddie.............and she got me!
I might have putted better if one of the local monkeys had caddied. We had quite a following and all after food for their young family.

JC decided after 14 holes that his trek down 300 steps at Hellfire Pass the previous day had got the better of him and he was most keen to get back to the clubhouse for a lie down. Despite our concerns he insisted that we carry on playing and his caddie drove him away.

To our surprise as we walked off the 18th green there was JC sat in the terrace bar with beer bottle in hand, smiling and waving. Another empty bottle was on the table. What an amazing recovery!

The view from the clubhouse terrace at Nichigo is magnificent.

That evening we ate at CR12, a fabulous restaurant alongside the floating one we'd been to earlier in the trip.
The CR12 was by far our best eating experience in Kanchanaburi.

Day Five-Bangkok

Simnot drove us the 90 miles to Bangkok and dropped us off at the Rembrandt Hotel around lunchtime.
What a great choice of Hotel for your last night in Thailand. I just wish I'd spent more time there.

Would you believe that of all the golf tours I have arranged to Thailand in the last ten years this was my first night sleeping in the capital. The Rembrandt is excellent and I would go back any day.

Our determination to thoroughly enjoy our final night of the holiday lead us to the Queen Vic Pub and onward to Soi Cowboy. The rest is a blur as was the flight home the following day.

All our thanks go to Ian Lewins for making our last five days so memorable.


 By the way I'm still counting-It's now 65 days to lift off.

Next week we are on a mini tour again.

My Thai Golf-What a brilliant idea-Part 1.

Prior to going on our 2012 Thailand Golf Tour to Hua Hin, our oldest tourist JC [now 76], told several of us all about his desire to visit the River Kwai to pay personal homage to all the allied soldiers who died whilst building the Thailand-Burma 'Death Railway' for the Japanese in World War Two.

Safe in the knowledge that Hua Hin is only a two and a half hour drive away from the Kwai, JC did bring the subject up several times once we arrived at our base, the Hua Hin Golf Villa. One way or another he was quite determined to go on this trip.

'Mr. Hua Hin Golf Tours' aka Ian Lewins also managed to get his ears burnt by JC on the subject so without saying a word to any of us he initiated some research on our behalf. With just seven days left of our holiday Ian approached us with what we perceived as a brilliant idea.

His proposal was that the three of us that were left [me, Chris and JC] take a two day historical/cultural visit to the Kwai to include two further days playing golf with our final night at a top Bangkok Hotel before flying home. A total of five nights with transportation in a luxury mini bus with our own driver for the duration.

What an opportunity! Our own personalised tour combining both golf and history without the constraints that come with an organised Coach excursion. We all jumped at the offer and Ian finalised the itinerary.
That trip is now firmly etched in my memory.

Kwai Tour-Day One-23rd February 2012
Our driver [Simnot] picked us up at 8.30am and drove to our first venue, the Royal Ratchaburi Golf Course 75 miles north of Hua Hin, a one and a half hour drive.

Royal Ratchaburi GC opened in 1988. It's referred to in several articles that I have read as a 'hidden gem' and now that I've played it, I fully agree. Plenty of water and bunkers, rolling fairways and some very undulating greens mean that you really need to think your way around here.

Have you ever had that feeling that your being watched? It happened more than once during our round.

It was a bit like having your own gallery following you.

An hour after leaving Royal Ratchaburi GC we arrived at our hotel for the next four nights, the Pung Waan Resort, situated right on the banks of the River Kwai, and two miles from the town of Kanchanaburi, the tourist centre for the region.

What a superb setting this resort hotel has.

After a quiet night we headed into day two and the onset of our cultural experience.

Day Two-24th February 2012
We left Pung Waan Resort at 9am and ten minutes later Simnot found a parking spot close to the Kwai bridge in Kanchanaburi, the same bridge that you will often see depicted on postcards and photos.

A local Guide Book seller talked me into buying one of his books for 200 baht. I was sceptical at first but I'm so glad I did as it proved to be £4 very well spent. That book contained an excellent historical insight as well as dispelling all the myths that had formed in my mind over the years through watching the film 'Bridge on the River Kwai' atleast 30 times.

We walked across the current bridge with all the other tourists and looked along the river to where the original Kwai bridge once stood, before it was bombed and destroyed. It was not blown up by Alec Guinness in Burma.

At the JEATH Museum, just a short walk away, you'll find a section of the original Kwai bridge and the museum itself is built on the site of that bridge.

JEATH stands for Japan, England, America, Australia, Thailand and Holland and represents the nationalities of the prisoners of war forced to work on the construction of the bridge on the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi.

There is a steam locomotive at the museum entrance
with an inscription on it which indirectly tells the reader why the building of the Thailand-Burma railway was so crucial to the Japanese war effort.










I found it quite poignant to discover that the locomotive had been constructed in GB in 1921. Then twenty two years later it was being used, along with many others, by the Japanese in their quest for victory in south east Asia against Britain and her allies.

Move on some sixty seven years after the end of World War Two and there I was taking a picture of a train crossing the Kwai bridge and heading in the direction of Burma.

Our next stop was the Don Rak War Cemetary, also in Kanchanaburi.

In this cemetary lay the bodies and remains of 6982 British, Dutch and Australian prisoners of war, who all died building the 415 Kilometres [260 miles] of 'death railway' between Thailand and Burma.

The cemetary is beautifully layed out and immaculately kept. It was so peaceful there as we wandered amongst the headstones. What a fitting monument this small piece of Thailand is to so many brave men.

By luck we discovered a hard backed register hanging on an outside wall of the Groundsman's Office. This book held details of every soldier buried in Don Rak Cemetary. If you go there looking for one particular grave I suggest you seek out that register because it will direct you to straight to the grave you want to see.

We spoke with an English lady who had come to visit the grave of her grandfather and to delve into the history of the Death Railway. She found his grave.

I know we all felt very humbled by our visit to Don Rak that day.

Opposite the cemetary is the Death Railway Museum and Research centre. This is an interactive museum that tells the story of the 'Death railway' using models, pictures, first hand accounts and video footage.  It is superbly constructed providing a walk through experience that shouldn't be missed.
Entrance fee is a mere 100 baht [£2] and it's worth every penny.

Later that evening we returned to the bridge and ate at the floating restaurant.

Then it was back to our Hotel to reflect and to prepare ourselves for day three.
I'll be recounting days three, four and five next week.
There you have it. A blog in two parts either side of Remembrance Sunday. Quite fitting I reckon.

For more information about Kanchanaburi go to www.visitkanchanaburi.com