This place is a ridiculously overpriced joke. I say this as someone who has now played golf in 40 countries, so I like to think I know what I'm talking about. For much of my time at Phokeethra I had nothing but contempt for the place and would have rated it a 'one', but they did do a bit of service recovery at the end and I was placated a little. (but more about that later) The marketing folks are still trading on the fact that they paid for an Asian Tour championship game at this course between 2007-2010, but it must have gone downhill significantly since then.

From the top. USD120 green fee and then a compulsory USD40 caddy/cart fee. Green fees I can cop as that's the cost of the game, but $120 is a lot and for that I have high expectations. Also, don't foist a useless caddy on me when I can do all of that myself. Not the ladies fault, but she spoke rudimentary English only and couldn't answer anything but the simplest queries about the course. What hazards are over the back of that green? How far right can I go on this fairway before the line of the water hazard? Both questions were too difficult. So someone raked some bunkers and handed me clubs when I was standing right beside my bag and could have pulled them myself. As I said, not her fault, just a pointless cost.

Personally, I would pay USD50 for this course for what I'd see as fair value. Or to use a different comparison: Phokeethra are asking the same as what I paid to play the Old Course at St. Andrews!

The course. Ridiculously wet fairways. Ball plugged on about 75% of them. It's the wetter season now so to be a little expected, but for the price this place should have decent drainage, shouldn't it? And they were using the irrigation to water the fairways on some holes making it wetter!!! Greens were furry and not pleasant to putt on. I can only remember some of the holes because I took photos of them. Otherwise all I'd remember is fairway with water on one side or the other and some bunkers. The land is flat and mostly inundated, so when building the course I guess they scooped out earth to raise the fairways and therefore ended up with water along each hole. Fine for a couple, but for every hole it just became boring, instantly forgettable and made the course seem one dimensional. ie: hit that way away from the water and then work out what's left for the approach shot to the cabbage patch of a green...

There was probably 10 times the number of staff to the number of golfers, so it looked pretty, but that only takes you so far when the product you're selling is flawed. And another thing. Small bottle of water in pretty much any shop in Siem Reap: 30cents. Here they want $4.50 for it. Memo to management: under-promise and over-deliver, not the other way around! For USD120 you can provide bottles of cold water in the heat!