Fore! Golfing in Bintan

I mentioned in my last post that I was given a fantastic set of golf clubs for my birthday. As part of the deal, Nic from my office had also arranged a golfing day out on Bintan the next weekend. Bintan is an Indonesian island about an hour's ferry ride out of Singapore. It has several resorts and golf courses and is very popular with Sinagporeans for short breaks and golfing days (it's much better value playing there than in Singapore, provided you are willing to travel).




We were meant to be playing with two guys from JLL, a service provider to Deutsche Bank, but after a big night out one of them slept in and missed the ferry. So there was just the three of us.

We played at the Laguna Bintan which is part of the Banyan Tree resort there. It's a very nice course and I was surprised to find that we were virtually the only people playing, even though it was a Saturday. This suited me fine, though, as I played spectactularly awfully and I needed neither an audience nor irritated golfers coming up behind us.

We had two (lady) caddies between the three of us. Nic and I shared one, called Multi. I have decided that I never want to play golf any other way! They were great. They would make club suggestions, tell you which way the green was falling and by how much (rarely getting it wrong) and I swear they can smell balls lost in the scrub!


One of the local hazards are the monkeys - they love to raid the carts whilst you are playing and steal food or whatever they can grab.

It was a great day out, even though I played like shit. Next thing to do is get some lessons .....