Open Fairways Australia Open Fairways Around the World
February 25,2006
Open Fairways Asia has officially launched and would like to announce some of the new courses which have already been added to the exclusive list of courses currently offered by Open Fairways Asia.
In China:
Lotus Hill Golf Resort,
Shenzhen Green Bay Golf Club
In Thailand:
Bangkok Golf Club,
St. Andrews Hill 2000,
Thai Muang Beach Golf and Marina,
Rayong Green Valley Country Club,
Laem Chabang International Country Club,
Green Valley Country Club.
In Sri Lanka:
Royal Columbo Golf Club,
Victoria Golf Club,
Nuwara Eliya Golf Club,
Water's Edge Golf Club
Please stay posted to www.openfairwaysasia.com for updates as we will be adding several new courses in the upcoming months.
SRI LANKAN COURSES JOIN OPEN FAIRWAYS - an article by Tony Mann
Friday, July 29, 2005
Sri Lanka is a wonderful island, offering just about everything a tourist could want, even after the tsunami, of which there is already scant physical evidence in most parts, and none at all inland. (The emotional scars are a different matter of course.) There are hundreds of miles of fabulous, palm-fringed beaches, warm seas for snorkelling and surfing, spectacular scenery inland, plus ancient palaces, temples, and natural wonders and possibly the friendliest people on earth. And there four terrific golf courses, each completely different to the others in its own unique way.
The first my wife and I played was up in the Hill Country in Nuwara Eliya (pronounced Newraylia), a lovely, old-fashioned, colonial style town, set in a bowl some 6000 feet up and surrounded by terraced tea plantations and tree-covered peaks rising a further 1000 feet. Part of the charm of the eponymous golf club, founded way back in 1889 and with a clubhouse evoking that era, is that it is actually in the town itself, with a few of the holes separated from the bustling streets only by wire-netting and a few trees. So close are the passers-by to one hole that my wife earned a round of applause for her tee shot from the queue at the bus-stop! (And in true Sri Lankan style it was genuine, too.) I was less fortunate, the muezzin at the nearby mosque starting his summons to prayer half way through my back swing.
At 6103 yards Nuwara Eliya is quite short - and the straight, flattish 1st, 2nd and 18th in front of the clubhouse, with little rough beneath the firs and eucalyptus either side, can lull one into a false sense of security. Thereafter, it all changes. It gets pretty hilly in parts, particularly the three hole loop known as "Switzerland". The rough becomes plentiful and punitive, streams abound, and many of the tee shots are very tight, especially on the par three's. On the fairways, a mix dominated by coarse, rubbery buffalo grass, there was very little run following earlier heavy rains, but the ball sat up really well. The greens too - none of them flat - had also suffered (at least, that's my excuse for being unable to fathom them), but it was clear that we had seen them at their worst. Not that it mattered anyway; it was a joy to play this lovely, traditional and testing old course.
About 45 miles north, along a tortuous but spectacular road through the tea estates, lies the old capital of Kandy, a buzzing hill country city, whose centre is at one end of a picturesque ornamental lake. 10 miles out of town (which is a good 35 minute drive in Sri Lanka) there's a turning off to Victoria Golf Club. After 4 miles of narrow, winding, pot-holed roads little more than tracks in some places a magnificent vista opens up, with the golf course at its heart. And what a golf course it is too. Surrounded by distant, craggy, jungle-clad peaks, beneath which a huge lake (a reservoir in fact) encircles the course, it follows almost entirely the natural contours of this idyllic landscape. With no water and just 12 bunkers, designers Donald Steel and Martin Ebert felt that those contours, plus the lush, tropical vegetation, provided hazards enough to test any golfer. And how right they were. Once you've managed to tear your eyes from the new view at every turn, or one of the 85 species of exotic bird se en on the course, you realise how each hole provides a completely different and tough challenge. But it's very fair course and, despite having opened only in 1999, this former coconut plantation is in excellent condition (even after 3 of rain the day before we played) and looks as though it's been there forever. As an added bonus, not only will you be accompanied by a cadd ie whose handicap is probably half yours, or less, but ball spotters too! Combined they'll cost you all of £5.
There's accommodation at Victoria GC as well; six lovely cabins on the course, near the delightful clubhouse and pool, which on weekdays cost around £13 per night (for the room that is, not per person) or one of a number of private houses for rent. And if you feel like splashing out a little, you can forego the fascinating 3½ hour drive from Colombo, and take the seaplane instead.
You will want visit Colombo too - not just because that's where the international airport is, or because it's a great city to spend some time in, but also because it is where the country's other two courses can be found. They are within a couple of good drives of each other, just 15 minutes from Fort, the city's main hotel area. But that is about all they have in common. Waters Edge GC is brand new - indeed only 11 holes were open when we played it in January 2005, the remainder being completed for an inaugural competition in September of the same year. The imposing, predominantly glass clubhouse is wonderfully light and airy, with a lawn outside commanding views of much of the otherwise flat course, and across to the smart houses being built around its palm-lined perimeter. Next door, a leisure complex is nearing completion, comprising a vast gym and open-air pool that would be the envy most British town councils.
The name of the course was not chosen on a whim. There is water everywhere - 60 acres of it in fact, out of the 230 acre site. You can cross it twice on some holes and it??s never far away from the edge of the fairway, either-normally on both sides! (My wife lost two balls on one hole and was pleased to limit the total damage over eleven holes to a mere six balls.) There's some evil rough too, just to stop any unlikely complacency. But Waters Edge is great fun to play and a real test of golf. It's the only course on the island without buffalo grass, using a more familiar-looking couch grass instead, with big and very slick greens.
Down the road is the grand-daddy of them all, Royal Colombo Golf Club, which one arrives at via an impressive, winding, tree-lined drive. Despite a recent extensive re-furbishment and expansion, the clubhouse still retains an aura befitting its status the second oldest Royal in the world outside the UK; enjoying a cold beer under a fan on the wide verandah overlooking the 9th and 18th it is easy to feel as if in a time-warp. As one would expect, the course has a really traditional parkland layout, with the novel variation of a railway line running through it! Gently undulating and dotted with a wonderful array of mature trees, it could almost be Britain, except for the grass of course and for the locals who, for the princely sum of 10p, will retrieve your ball from the numerous water hazards, particularly on the opening holes. Immaculately kept and with excellent new (two-year-old) greens, a round at Royal Colombo is a must.
But all four of Sri Lanka's courses are so well worth a visit and add a welcome new dimension to Telegraph Open Fairways.
