Posts Tagged China
Birdie at Olazabal Course in Mission Hills, China
On the Par 5 3rd hole of the bunker infested Olazabal Course at Mission Hills, China, a solid 250 yard drive cleared me from all the fairway bunkers. A lay up in front of the stream left us with an uphill 100 yards. The trusty pitching wedge got me to within 15 inches of the hole. The right to left putt tracked nicely to the bottom of the cup. A good start to our round.
100707 Mission Hills, China - Olazabal, Hole #3 (Par 5)
Birdie – Pete Dye Course, Mission Hills, China
This was Pete Dye’s first course in China and only Chartered Diamond (highest level) members of the Mission Hills Golf Club are entitled to play here. Of course it helps to know a Chartered Diamond member too. We’ve played all the original 10 courses and this is our first time on this course. We heard that it was difficult, but this was stupid difficult. The greens are severely undulating and the holes cut in the most unreasonable places. Can you believe putting uphill and stopping hole high two inches from the cup and have the ball roll back to where you started from, or even further? CRAZY.
Anyway, we managed to squeeze in a birdie on hole 12. This 387 yard (from the blues) dogleg left Par 4 had long and wide fairway bunkers on the left, begging for me to get into. And luckily I avoided them, but instead managed to get into one of the small right hand side ones…R didn’t seem to be very happy though. Nevertheless, we were on a clean flat lie with about 150 yards to the front hole location. A nice clean hit with a 6 iron landed just on the front part of the green, leaving a 15 footer uphill. The greens were much faster than the 8.2 Stimpmeter reading that was recorded. But fortunately after several holes, we managed to get a hold of the speed and after a good read and stroke, in I went.
100525 Mission Hills - Pete Dye, Hole 12 (Par 4)
100525 Mission Hills - Pete Dye, Hole 12 (Par 4)
Birdie – Palm Island, China
Another mediocre day on the golf course. Ups and down…the greens (if you can call them that) were terrible. Sandy, bumpy and some had patches without any grass. Looked like the “browns” they play in desert golf. Even those roll truer. Anyway, this was for the United Hearts Charity Golf Tournament at Palm Island, China. On the first hole (our seventh) of the Lake Course (327 yard Par 4) our drive left us 125 to the center of the green. Faced with a back pin position and a fairly strong wind straight in our faces, we hit a 7 iron and got it three feet past the hole. This was tricky, a downhill putt on a bumpy green…hmmm. Had to be aggressive to hold the line but couldn’t hit too firm otherwise I could have ended up way down the slope if we missed the hole. A good firm tap and I trickled down into the hole.
100326 Palm Island, Lake 1 (Par 4)
Sandy Birdie – Fenghuangshan, China
I bet that all of you must have thought that I was in hibernation lately. I guess all the good food had something to do with it. Anyway, I’m back just in time for the last birdie of 2009.
After going into the bunker numerous times on earlier holes, the practice finally made perfect. On the Par 4 4th (360 yards from the blues), actually our 13th hole, a left to right wind almost blew our drive into the right lateral hazard. In the first cut of rough faced with a downhill lie, a 9-iron avoided the trees and faded perfectly towards the hole. Damn, short…in the greenside bunker. No sweat, all that practice taught us to hit a bit more sand and that’s exactly what we did. A perfect bunker shot. With the hole above R’s head he peeked up and just caught a side of me as I was falling into the hole.
Happy New Year!!!
091231 Fenghuangshan, China, Hole 4 (Par 4)
Birthday Golf @ Palm Island
Another invitation, this time by Golf Magazine (Hong Kong) for their 7th Anniversary. It was also R’s birthday too. No better way to celebrate one’s birthday than to play golf.
Being R’s birthday, I think he had everything going for him. We managed three birdies again. First one was at the Lychee Course’s A2 (Par 4). A safe 5-iron kept the ball in front of the massive bunker that spans the entire fairway. A well struck 4-hybrid left a 15 footer for the first birdie of the day.
Have you ever heard of snooker golf? Well, on the Lychee Course’s A5 (Par 5), a good drive left just over 210 yards to the pin and going with the wind, a 3-hybrid left it about 15 yards from the front edge of the green. A fellow competitor’s ball was pin high to the right of the flag and thinking that we won’t hit him, we chipped with an 8-iron. It was hot and right of the hole with the momentum to end up at the back of the green or even off. But it struck the stationary ball and ricocheted to just a foot from the hole for a tap in birdie. Could have been an eagle if it went in!
Again on a Par 5, the C2 hole (River Course) had strong winds in our favor. At 485 yards, we must have hit a 290 yard drive as we were left with 193 to the center of the green. Thank you wind. Afraid that we might over shoot the green, we played an 180 yard shot with the 4-hybrid and left it in the greenside bunker. After a nice bunker shot, we had a 12 foot downhill putt for the birdie.
Happy Birthday R. I’m sure my three birdies made your day very happy.
Oh BTW, we won the nett champion with a nett score of 69 using the New New Peoria Handicap System.
091111 Palm Island, Lychee A2 (Par 4)
091111 Palm Island, Lychee A5 (Par 5)
091111 Palm Island, River C2 (Par 5)
