Review of the Month September 2018 – Navatanee

Oops I did it again; I got sucked into playing an overly expensive Asian golf course that rates fairly highly within the country. In the case of this course, Navatanee, likely based on two factors: it stills clings to the World Cup 1975 tag and the fact that it's an expensive and mostly private club.

However, it's a flat, parkland or even resort style layout that quickly became repetitive – if it wasn't for the photos and notes I took during the round I'd scarcely be able to recall a single hole 24 hours later. Additionally, it was very wet underfoot and most balls plugged on the fairways and surrounds. Whilst it had rained the night before, the addition of sprinklers had kept everything far too wet and really, this course is in tropical Asia where rain is pretty much a constant. If the conditioning can't cope with a small amount of rain I'd hate to think what it was like after a real downpour.

Really surprised that this course is rated anywhere near the top 10 to 15 in Thailand: as a club, sure it has a nice clubhouse and lots of staff (more staff working on the course than golfers playing midweek) and it looked tidy enough, but if I really consider the key points of the course design, conditioning and aesthetics, it was pretty average. Another word comes to mind: confected. A course confected from flat floodplain.

There must be better and better value golf in Bangkok and I think this course would be more accurately rated 3.5 balls.

By Scarlett

Review of the Month September 2018 selected by Editor-in-Chief, Keith Baxter – click to read more about Navatanee.