Today we went to Royal Ratchaburi which was about 1 and a half hours from the River Kwai. Only four of us played this course, Deb and Julie had a rest day to go shopping and relax (the later part didn’t really happen). This was one of the cheapest courses we played so it would be interesting to see how it compares to all the others.
First impressions were very good, it was a little run down around the club house but the course looked good. The fairways turned out to be good couch grass and not too soft, none of us had any problems hitting off the fairways. As is typical of Thai golf courses, the edges of the fairways were thicker grass, which is hard to get out of, but not too difficult. The sand bunkers were not well kept, but it wasn’t difficult to pick your ball up out of them and the fairway bunkers were easy to get out of.
The greens were quite good, not too fast, but tricky to read and the downhill slopes on some of them were extremely tricky to manage. Bruce loved the shortness of the course and although he played off a 12 hcp, it was quite reasonable.
One of the holes was very interesting, with two fairways split by a lake in the middle. You could take the long way around, or shorten it by taking on the water. The alternative was the left side, which was shorter and narrow, with water on both sides. Bruce went the shorter route and luckily landed in the middle of the fairway. A wedge onto the green and a par. Neil took on the water crossing and fell a couple of metres short.
The monkeys added an extra dimension to the course, they were everywhere and if you left food unattended in your golf cart, it was quickly stolen. On some holes one caddy had to guard the carts while we putted out. We also saw a lovely peacock on one hole. There were many dogs wandering around, but they were not a problem.
All up I thought it was good value for money and I would definitely play this course again.
The next day we left Kanchanaburi in the party bus and we are now in Hua Hin, ready to play golf again at Banyan tomorrow.
