Day 2 of our Bandung golf tour took us north of Bandung. Established as a 9 hole course in 1917, the Dago Indah Golf course is one of the oldest golf courses in Indonesia. The course was subsequently expanded to 18 holes in 1994.
The course measures about 5,677 yards and the relatively short par 70 course, is made up of 2 par 5s, 4 par 3s and 12 par 4s. If memory serves correctly, there was a 90 yard par 3 on the back 9, which was interesting.
As we entered the club compound, it slowly became clear that the overall condition of the course (clubhouse, restrooms, buggy centre & cafe - all housed in one building, golf buggies) lived up to its "oldest course" moniker. Refurbishment / Upgrade anyone?
First impressions of the golf course? It reminded me of the narrow and undulating fairways at the Prisons Golf Club in Kuching .
Except here, Dago Indah made up for the shortage of length with very narrow fairways, really steep terraces and undulatinggg terrain.
The Kaki Golf crew.
Tee box at Hole 10
Tee box at Hole 1
Remember I said steep terraces? This is an example of how steep the terraces were and my mate and I had the good misfortune of hooking our drives there. Oh and this was just one of the many steep terraces mind you.
Quite a climb up and down I tell you.
It's a challenging hole this one and you can sort-of see the layout from the picture below (left of the buggy track). View is from the green so the terrace appear on the right side.
Yeap, there is always that one solitary tree about middle of the fairway to mess up your drive.
And remember I mentioned narrow fairways? This is the par 4, 13th. You can't tell but the fairway is super narrow! Couldn't have measured wider then 50 meters and to make things even harder, it bends dog leg right! So if you hook or draw your drive just a tad over, trouble. It played too much on my mind and naturally, I ended up driving it left into the woods. Whoopee!
As we concluded our round. we made it back to the club house in time as the rain started to pour to cap off a challenging afternoon of golf.
Value : We had a travel agent arrange our ground travel, accommodation and golf in a lump sum, so I am not quite sure how much we paid for the golf.
Staff : 3/5
Nothing out of the ordinary. My caddy did a good job but a few of my kakis didn't share the same luck.
Course conditions : 2.5/5
The fairways were wet in places and didn't seem very well maintained. The greens unfortunately were crap. Brown / bald patches throughout. I think there were a few greens that were refurbished but the majority of them were in bad shape and it was no fun seeing your ball bounce and veer severely offline when you putt or chip onto the green. Shame really and don't be fooled by the pictures you see on their website.
Aesthetics : 3.5/5
At the risk of sounding snobby, this was no private / member's club. Landscaping was unrefined and minimalistic at best. Nice views though.
Amenities : 2.5/5
As I mentioned earlier, the clubhouse,registration,buggy centre, locker room and cafe were all housed in one building in need of major refurbishment. The Pro shop was in a tiny room within the cafe and couldn't have been bigger then 6ft X 6ft. I have to say though that it was pretty well stocked.
Apparently, there are refurbishment / upgrading works in the plans.
Similar to the Mountain View Course, there were no half way houses either. Just people setting up make shift stalls on a couple of holes with a small selection of drinks and snacks.
Buggies were pretty old too.
Experience : 2.5/5
Overall, Dago Indah provided a good challenge. If you're having one of those slice / hook days, make sure you bring plenty of balls.
In dire need of proper maintenance and upgrading, the experience at Dago Indah was rather meh. Won't be visiting the course again in future unless they upgrade and refurbish the place in general. It has the potential to be a good course, just really lacking in maintenance at the moment.
In spite of the above, I managed a 91 (5 under) which is becoming increasingly rare in my game.
Total score : 14/25
No comments:
Post a Comment