Tee Time: 8:10am
Players: EY, Gary, HG
Wow, what an awesome golf course! Tee times here are spaced 10 minutes apart which is crazy for Korea since most courses spread out their tee times at 7 minute apart. At 10 minutes it’s really luxury and you likely won’t even see the group in front or behind you and you can play at a nice pace with mulligans, etc. However, our round wasn’t really like this…
The clubhouse is really nice. The entrance reminded me of South Cape in that it looks very futuristic, etc. This place was actually more modern and nicer than South Cape.
After going in you check-in at the counter (no kiosks here like other places these days) and get your locker assignment, etc.
The locker rooms are on the left and the lockers are nice and big. It’s very upscale as is everything here.
There is a small pro shop behind the front desk. It seemed pretty typical selling things from Malbon, Titleist, G-Fore, etc.
The start house is their restaurant and is where you go to eat before your round as well as during your round. There is no separate “shadow house.”
The food is pretty typical for Korean golf courses and is not too expensive. Typical soups and such are around 25,000 krw. I got a ciabatta sandwich that comes with juice for 24,000. The sandwich wasn’t terrible but they never brought me my juice. I forgot about it but oh well.
The course is beautiful. There are great views. In many ways it is similar to Cascadia although Cascadia has a much better clubhouse. Some of the holes aren’t great as the fairways tend to be narrow, some are blind, etc.
We played the IN course so we started on the back 9. I think this is nice because you get to the signature par 3 pretty quickly. It’s a nice island green and is beautiful. It was nice that I nailed my drive onto the green and had an easy 2 putt for par.
We got coffee and they served them in tumblers that had the golf course etched onto the tumbler. The tumblers were ours to keep so that was nice too!
We didn’t have a break in the middle so just got our coffee refilled and went back out to play.
When we first got to the cart, there was a bit of a ruckus going on because there was an irate woman complaining that their cart isn’t out yet. She kept saying that she’s the 8:10am tee time. We are the 8:10am tee time but many times there are 2 tee times as the same time because one is IN (starts at hole 10) and one is OUT (starts at hole 1).
Anyway, our cart came out and she was irate that their cart was still not out yet. A few minutes later her cart came out and the caddie and manager came out saying that they had trouble finding the bags and something about finding the car, etc. Not sure what it was about but the woman was still really mad saying that they came really early so there’s no excuse for not having their bags and cart out by now, etc.
They proceeded to the course…maybe they were the 8:00 tee time because they were the team in front of us.
Turns out that they play really slowly so after a few holes a big gap formed between them and the group in front of them. So that team was basically slowing down us and everyone behind us.
Personally I didn’t really care so our pace wasn’t that slow anyway and I am fine with a leisurely round but apparently our caddie got a message from the marshall to play quickly and apply some pressure to the group in front of us because they are slowing everyone down and some groups later on might not be able to finish up 18 holes due to darkness…it was only like 10am but I guess they were just running slow.
I think this is why we had no break at the turn as well. We applied pressure but they were still kind of slow anyway. They probably didn’t want to say anything to that crazy woman.
But the round was pretty good! I played well. My ankle was still swollen and I was hobbling around the course but my driver was solid…probably one of the best driver days I have had in a long time. The caddie probably thought I always just walk with a limp and she did encourage me to take the cart. I guess she didn’t want to say anything about the limp. She did say at the end that she appreciated how I play because I generally make it easy for the caddie…I walk out with 2-3 clubs (including my 56 degree wedge), etc. so she doesn’t have to run back and forth and I line up my own putts, etc. It was windy at times and the caddie was a little stressed so she appreciated that she didn’t have to do much for me.
Anyway, it was a fun round. My ankle really got swollen and bruised up by the end of the round but hopefully should be ok in a few days or so…
After the round, we had lunch in Fioretto, the Italian restaurant in the clubhouse. This is a popular restaurant and people make reservations to eat there even if they are not playing golf, etc. There is a nice menu but there is also a lunch course for 55k krw which includes bread, appetizer, pasta, and dessert so we got the course. It does not include a drink so I ordered a coke zero.
