Harvard here i come....that was what i said a year ago.... so what took me sooo long to blog about this? well no golfing there hence no picture ultimately no blogging right? hehehe... every time its either close for tournament that i am not invited or my usual gang doesn't wants to go there.
I also love to play at this course, maybe its bcos out of the 3 courses in SP/Kedah area i played Harvard the least. ok back to the course, this is an amazing 27 holes course; Jerai, Guthrie and Harvard are the courses name. Harvard usually is closed but today i managed to play two holes before i call it a quit and return to play in Jerai...oh by the way we started on Guthrie first. Its Monday and the course is virtually empty so we didn't start the normal way. I just learned that Monday has special deal - $58 for 18 hole play. its a steal isn't it? The course is long with slope rating of at least 72.7/138 when tee off from the blues. Jerai & Guthrie combination gives golfers a whoping distance of 6218 meters. to confuse you readers more there are combination choices of playing Jerai & Harvard, Jerai & Guthrie and Guthie & Harvard; all has different slope ratings. Harvard was deserted and most important of all the greens are not well maintained...
there are many rubber trees around to landscape this course, all fairways are grown with the famous Malaysian cowgrass; most fairways are generous. Rough is really rough, imagine my golf mate lost 3 balls were we actually see them from the tee off point but not anywhere when near? don't tell it its ghost golfer; but rumor is, there is such thing there, so mind your languages and attitude when play there. Greens are uniquely shaped - some are peanut shape, club shape and others are you know greens...hahaha gotcha; they are small but soft enough to land and bite on very high approach. there are a couple of holes with the layout of water hazard guarding the greens, so approach shot must have some accuracy. with its length only if driver can carry 250 meters, most of the par 4 requires mid to long irons. Par 5s are very well reachable in 3 i mean not 2; one is 500m, the other 3 is 477m, 480m & 480m. Par 3s are a steal for strong iron players cos only one requires 200m tee shot. tee boxes are OK...reason? well i am not picky but you can see signs of heavy utilization...divots out grow the pace of the grass growth and most of them are raised and small. when you see these types of tee box you definitely experience none flat tee box - an obvious peak at the middle of the tee box. coming from BJCC regulars, i can say this is a flat course with lots of trees, bunkers and water hazard. oh before i forget the bunkers are awful; some are muddy.
Index 1 and 2 are a real challenge; one needs a drive of at least 220m to cross water hazard that cut across tee box and fairway and it runs right along side fairway all the way to the green. of course there are options for short hitters as well but may not reach in 2. and for index 2, water hazard starts 100m (approximate) after the tee box and runs right along side fairway; at the end you will see the green on the right across the water hazard. Index 3 has tricky greens while index 4 has huge trees to fly over on the tee shot. Index 6 has water hazard surrounding the green from left and back - a hook or over shot will leave you no choice but to play another shot from origin.
Club house is not good, its run down, food is bad and you can get very i mean very good food around Gurun area. Just in case you don't realize Harvard GCC is in Gurun/SP border. Shower room is not nice but its surfice for its purpose. other than golfing there is lodging and neat looking driving range and small chipping/putting practice area. its always ashame that malaysian golf clubs don't have PGA standard practive area. so blame them for the reason we have sub par pro golfers tat can't even compete with the Thais. but for leisure and weekend golfers there is absolutely no reason for you not to visit this course and challenge yourself one or many rounds here.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment