Black Mountain Golf Club

Having walk 18 holes mountain course 2 days ago, we were prepared for Black Mountain this time, we brought ourselves each 2 litre of bottle water, towel to dry our sweat, extra socks and plenty of golf ball.

This club was developed by a Swiss developer, it was tucked behind a few mountain range close to the town. It took us about 25 minutes to drive from our hotel, the road was bad driving up to Black Mountain. There are potholes all over, the bushes is over-grown on the side of the road so we can not see through when we come to a sharp curve. But once we arrive, it is a magnificent scene over-looking the town being wrapped around by hills and a seaview at far, really a gorgeous view.

I love the course very much, also loved my beautiful caddie. They were very nice and spoke simple english, when Vic missed a putt, they have to apologise to him. I told them: "it's not your fault, it's his fault that he didn't putt the ball to the hole. And it's also his fault when you told him to drive the ball to the left center fairway that he drove into the bushes..... not your fault, no need to apologise."

The slope is even more severe this time at Black Mountain, we climbed some fairway uphill to a 35 - 40 degree slope. I played at the red tee marked 5700 yard and I felt like I am playing to about 6000 yard. We think we could take advantage of downhill hole which we really could not because there are water hazard like a creek running through the fairway and the rough is 4" tall, if we missed the fairway or the proper landing spot then it felt like we lost a stroke right there. It has a lot of blind spot to hit to, where you can not see through the uphill there are bunkers around the green, all we could do is to trust the caddie and hit it straight to where the caddie told us, unfortunately this is not always do-able.

It is a truly beautiful course, I won't rate it better than Kapalua in Maui but it is one of the best we played in Thailand, just as good as Blue Canyon at Phuket. But Blue Canyon becomes too expensive to play, each round cost US$ 180 per player plus caddie fee and tips, my opinion is not worth this price as far as comparison to other courses in Thailand is concerned.

I shot a 82 and Vic shot in 90's, we both enjoyed the course very much and he had a cramp on his left leg after the hike. I don't see myself can play here 5 rounds a week unless I go through a training program, it is very demanding to walk this course, have to be in un-believable shape to walk 18 holes 5 times a week.