Not to be mixed up with Banyan Tree, this course opened in October 2008 and already was voted as the Best New Course in 2009 by Asian Golf Monthly. The designer, Pirapon Namatra of Golf East, built this course amongst an existing pineapple plantation and purposely kept some and made them in play on some holes if you deviate too far from the fairway. You can’t not notice the pineapples as all the tee boxes use them as tee markers.

The signature hole is the Par 3 15th (136 yards from the whites). It is supposed to have panoramic ocean views all the way to Sing Toh (Tiger) Island in the Gulf of Thailand. However, the sky was pretty hazy and we were not able to see anything beyond significant distance. There are four tee boxes available, 7,361 yards from the blacks, 6,774 from the blues, 6,286 from the whites (this is where we teed off from) and 5,087 for the reds.

With even more elevation changes than Black Mountain it has its share of water hazards and greens that are significantly more ‘potato chipped’. Although the greens maybe large, the false fronts reduces the landing area by at least 20%. Short and you can find your ball 30 yards down the slope. Even if you’re on the green, unless you are within 30 feet of the hole, there’s no guarantee to hole out in two. Catch the wrong side of the hole and your second putt could be further away from the hole than when you started.

One unfortunate incident was the caddie that we had, #155. Unbelievable. With our experience in China, we have always reduced our reliance on caddies down to just bag carriers, but nothing prepared us for what happened. She was very unprofessional. She did not even carry out basic duties such as attending the flagstick, nor seem to know where I landed on every hole (R doesn’t get me on the fairway all the time). And on hole 3 (Par 5), we laid up to 100 yards on our second shot but she kept driving the golf cart all the way up to the green (in Thailand you get one caddie and one golf cart per player, so she does the driving). We thought we couldn’t have hit it that far…and we were right. R ended up walking 100 yards to to me (exactly at the 100 yard marker) and walked another 100 back to the green! We were clearly annoyed, but didn’t say anything to her. Suddenly, after a few holes, she started crying!!! WTF? From then on she just stood still by the cart and didn’t pass clubs, clean clubs, clean me, etc. WTF??!! R ended up doing all the caddie duties and at the end of the round gave her a poor evaluation and didn’t give her any tips. Comes to show that a good caddie is getting harder and harder to find these days…but didn’t expect anything like this. We think this is an isolated incident at Banyan as our friend’s caddie was much better.

– 17/20
– 12/20 (if taking the caddie into consideration)

The Banyan Golf Club
101 Moo 9, Tab Tai
Hya Hin 77110
Thailand
T: +66 (0) 3261 6200
E: reservations@banyanthailand.com
W: www.banyanthailand.com/Golf

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Pro shop

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Starter hut

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Scorecard (Par 72, 7,361 yards)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 1 (Par 4)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Pineapple tee marker

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 3 (Par 5)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 5 (Par 4)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 6 (Par 4)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 10 (Par 4)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 12 (Par 5)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 15 (Par 3)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - Hole 17 (Par 3)

091212 Banyan Golf Club - View from the Terrace Restaurant