In the Navy...

Tuesday 7th

Today we played the Navy course at Plutaluang. They have 4 courses of 9 holes and we played the east and west courses. I had an exceptionally good day scoring 83 off the stick for 40 points - 4 under my handicap. This included at least 3 or 4 3-putt greens as well. I was rarely off the fairway with my tee shots and the one time I finished in a dry water hazard, I got out, chipped on and sunk my putt for a par anyway. I also had an eagle putt on a par 5 that gave me a tap-in birdie. In addition, I picked up one nearest the pin and the long drive. This has given me a lead of 8 shots in the comp, replacing the 23 points from the first day in my best 3 scores.

The course was not suffering from the dry as much as some of the others and had a lot of water, elevated tees and trees in the fairway. The latter did not impact me much but a couple of the others got quite frustrated with them. There was even one hole that had some monkeys in the trees and the bushes along side the course. Their signature hole is an island green next to a lighthouse. This was on one of the course we did not play but you can see it in the distance in the shot of the par 3 that we did play.

It was probably the best of the courses we've played this time. There was a special on today and for 1020B we got green fees, a caddy and a cart each. this effectively saved us 700B. With the caddy tip, it wasn't much over $50 today plus transport etc.

After the game we had showers and then ate at the restaurant there. This is the first time we have done this but I'm not really sure why. Apart from the first course, they have all had places to eat. The view from the restaurant is quite spectacular - overlooking the lake, the first and last of the east course as well as the last on the south course and the floral emblem. The club house is circular and built around a central garden and water feature.

There was a brief spell of rain - heavy drops but not too dense for a short time while we were playing. Enough to get the umbrellas up but not really enough to influence the game. ie our grips didn't get wet. However, as we left in the bus, it started to pour and it rained all the way back to Pattaya, with quite a bit of lightning about as well. The scooter riders we passed looked like drowned rats.

Our last official game is tomorrow but Danny has a game organised on Friday at Eastern Star, where we played last Friday. I'm tossing up whether to play that and arrange for my driver to pick me up late on Friday or whether to leave on Thursday instead. I can't see much point in hanging around here on Thursday just to leave early on Friday.

After updating this blog I got some stuff at the 7-11 and then joined Ed and TVL on Ed's balcony for a drink, before we all headed over to Le Katai. TVL and I later went for a walk to get something to eat and decided on Mexican from a stall around the corner. It wasn't too bad but we were both still hungry so we moved further down Soi Dianna to the International food hall where I had a pasty while he had some chicken and a slice of pizza. We then went to the sewing lady who fixed his back pack and she will replace 2 zips in my purse for about $6. Much cheaper than getting a new one.