Bali Golf & Country Club has three settings to thrill senses
By Nicklaus D'Cruz
Bali Golf & Country Club is set within the ecologically planned tourist resort of Nusa Dua located on the magical island of Bali, the Island of the Gods. Amidst the twitter of birds, the calming crash of surf, the splendour of flora, the peacefulness of forests, the contrasting scenery of rugged volcanoes and unique Balinese rice terraces, it is not too much unlike the playground of paradise.
The course itself is a rare tale of three settings ... three differing and extremely contrasting terrain that offer you an unequalled variation in topography, scenery and adventure. It is a course that thrills the senses.
The first nine offers you scenes of undulating terrain and of rice terraces left in play as they skirt some greens to offer you several layers of trouble golfers would not normally be accustomed to. Then there are those elevated views that allow you a glimpse of these famed fairways, rising and falling as the try to stretch seaward, their forest covered extremities allowing you a glimpse over the orange rooftops of the Aman Nusa resort at the Indian Ocean and back up to the towering top of the Gunung Agung Volcano. It is a nine that meanders rather excitingly through its hilly, heavily forested terrain to produce a number of daunting and dramatic holes.
You then cross over from the end of the inward nine and come face to face with a totally different environment immediately evident from the monstrous waste bunker that divides the 10th hole from the 16th, and which is thought to be the largest sand bunker in the world. It effectively jolts you out of any complacency you may have fallen into and signals the start of a new journey.
This well manicured stretch of tranquility takes you in isolation through coconut groves offering unrivaled charm with its interiors dressed with huge sand dunes occupying six of seven holes and dotted with 100 foot coconut trees to emphasize that feeling of paradise.
It is truly a scenic stroll through the svelte trees and as you navigate your way through their magic setting. And juxtaposed with that calm are some exciting holes made up of tempting carries enticing you to shorten their twisting lines in an effort to straighten the holes out yourself.
You finally leave the serenity through the 16th and emerge in the sun and surf of the last two wind swept fairways to meet up with one of the most memorable holes on the golf course where you get to send your ball hurtling towards the ocean.
No concoction can impart a charm better than the merger of a deep green fairway making its way to a well sculptured green that seems to plunge into the sea; framed by the wide, wet horizon and finished with tall, slinky coconut palm trees. Florida, Hawaii, Bali ... it doesn't matter, because it-is-good.
This is a golf course of great scenic beauty. It encourages a lot of tactical maneuver and is punctuated by very dramatic landscaping; by very dramatic bunkering; very dramatic turns and then closes with two fabulously scenic holes fronting the Indian Ocean.
At its heart, Bali Golf & Country Club is a resort course; and one of the most successful in Asia that successfully maintains a championship standard. Although designed to accommodate the tourist with fairways that almost never get under 40 metres in width, its difficulties increase many fold as you move back through the multiple tees. Many of the holes are already long and require two full shots to make the greens in regulation. It has a sort of magic distance that never allows you to relax and always requires you to be wary of the hazards that are never too far away. The greens are not always outside your reach but often stretch your abilities to put some pressure on your game, building up the difficulty and waiting for you to falter.
Then there are the undulating greens that require a fair amount of skill to be able to direct your ball along their near perfect surfaces. Although generally cut to be slow, they still afford a decent speed and counter their rather firm surfaces.
With so much sand in play through the second half of the round, it is imperative that you bring along a good sand game or risk a bit of frustration as these overwhelming hazards try desperately to slow your game down.
First nine
The first hole is a great indication what you are about to set out to. A cluster of 6 pot bunkers occupy the left of the fairway while a tree occupies the middle, parallel to the last bunker 210 metres from the tee. For many, that tree indicates the spot you point your clubface at in the hope your ball falls anywhere right or left of it to allow you a clear second shot. The landing area for your next shot opens up greatly to allow you to make some real progress with your longest fairway club. With the tough opening and easy second, it should then appear obvious that the closing shot will be tough; and it is. A meager 5 metre opening in the green reveals itself right of one deep pot bunker merrily accompanied by another 4 sand traps. A large mound exerts some pressure on the entrance from the right side of the opening which will be looking for a draw from the fairway. Pull it a fraction too much and you may be testing the bottom of your first sand pit, practice though that may just come in handy later on in your round. Land your ball as low down the green as you can because this is a slick, fast and hard surface, quicker than what you may be used to.
The second hole is a tight, right turning dogleg, twisting almost 90 degrees where your golf ball lands. It is however a spacious landing zone with the far left able to contain the longest of drives. All that though will be wasted space for the longer player who will try to cut the ravine and trees on the inside of the elbow with a drive of 220 metres to set up a short iron to the green. The green is somewhat similar to the first in that it is offset right to left with 3 mounds protecting the right side but different in that the front entrance is left wide open. Great undulations through the putting surface, aggravated by the mounds that distort the edges, require you to get your ball close to the pin on your approach. A large trap awaits in the left back for those that failed to get their drive past the bend.
A tame looking fairway precedes the astounding design of the 3rd hole. You need to send it down the fairway as far as you can keeping an eye out though for the forested ravine that hugs the right edge stopping short only 50 metres from the hole where the fairway turns sharply right at that point to meet the green. Where the turn is, the ravine protrudes into the middle of the fairway requiring you to cross it if you are anywhere center through to the right side of the fairway. The ravine sits below a tall mound which has a bunker dug out of its top but serves more as a psychological distraction as it is some 30 metres from the green while further emphasizing the variation in height. The green slopes from right to left and should not be too difficult to find as it is a large target with a generous landing area in its front. You cannot miss it right though because of the ravine, and the green rises to a crest in the back right to make sure you cannot get your ball too close if the pin were there.
The 6th is a great looking hole and arguably one of the best in Asia which requires a tee shot that must travel across a ravine that protrudes in like a great big 'V' lying on its side and creating much more trouble on the right than on the left. The ravine skirts past the right edge of the green which hovers at least 10 metres above. With the pin on the right, you will not be considered weak if you ignored both the flag and the mini canyon it towers above and played for the safer left, located one tier above. Even so, it is a question of risk and reward because the putt will then have to descend to the distinctly lower tier and travel through the steep incline to get to the pin a rather long way away. It would be a shame to send your ball off the green into the gully below or leave it too short from the hole out of genuine fear. The choice must be made off the tee as to whether it is worth the daunting task to find the elusive surface, barely 15 metres deep and straddling all that trouble or playing to the wrong side of the green.
The 8th hole looks over a gaping ravine that is nearly 100 metres wide. The fairway itself starts after a steep ascent from where the canyon ends, nearly 20 metres above the tee box. The motivation of this beautiful opening should encourage you to smack your golf ball a long way on this long hole. This hole carries the lowest index and rightly so because even after a long drive, you will have a long iron or fairway wood, or more if the wind is in your face, to a green that sits horizontally across the fairway and offset to the left. Ideally you should be coming in from the left as you will have to scale some bamboo trees and cross two bunkers across the entrance if you are coming in from the other side. There are a couple of waves that run through this green, sloping right to left towards terraces that reflect the topology of the rice terraces Bali is famous for, and which have also been left about the first half of this golf course.
Another great hole follows and finishes your journey through the inward nine. This last fairway is sandwiched between a creek that cuts across the fairway 80 metres from the tee and ends 260 metres from the tee box where the fairway lunges into a lake. You can take aim right of center to initiate a straightforward attack at the green or send the ball along the left side of the fairway, negotiating a tree and a bunker in the process, but taking the water out of play. From either spot, you will still be left with two options to consider. The lake meets the green 100 metres across which has been bulk-headed and thrust into the water with a negligible margin around the front and then toughened with the usual waves that distort its smooth surface. You can play for the heart of the green or run your ball along the left side of the fairway which runs past the left edge of the green to set up a short pitch.
Second nine
The change in scenery cannot be as dramatic as the one you get when you travel from the 9th to the 10th tee. A couple of waste bunkers, each occupying an area of 70 metres by 70 metres greet you as you make the last turn and inform you with no uncertainty that the test is about to change chapters. You might want to tighten that grip a little more as you take your practice swings to iron out the wrinkles and cricks, then wipe out any fears of the desert-like terrain and address that ball. Aim between the tall coconut trees that now dominate and enhance the scenery while ignoring the waste bunker that starts on the right side of the teebox and ends 50 metres from the green. At about 150 metres from the tee, another waste trap starts on the left and edges its way to the green, pushing its entrance to the right, just as it did the fairway from where it started. You need full carry to get to the green because the last thing you want is to do is find the sand and start things off on the wrong foot.
A pond makes up the space between the 12th tee and green and makes it quite clear that full carry is required to get to the putting surface. A 5 metre mercy margin fringes the green while a pot bunker sits in the front left while another trap occupies the back, knowing full well that this is the sort of whole golfers may just overclub, to complete the hole.
The 16th hole takes possession of the highest index on this nine and it will be quite clear as soon as you look at the details on your scorecard. At 443 yards off the lion tees, the tees that most tourists will be playing from, it is the sort of distance that public neighborhood courses or layouts of old might have labeled as a par 5. You will either have to resign yourself to having to play this as a such or else attempt to launch your ball to a spot as far away from the tee as possible without hurting yourself. But you will probably refrain from doing so because the hole is lined with waste bunkers from tee to green, starting left of the teebox for a good 300 metres, around which the fairway turns, and then beginning about 100 metres away on the right to where it explodes into a huge bunker complex between 80 and 100 metres wide that engulfs the entire right side of the green. Only the longest of drivers should attempt to chew off the corner where a drive carrying 220 metres should just skip past the turn after crossing what will seem like miles of desert sand. That maneuver though will leave you under 160 metres to the green and perhaps the golden key to par. Dropping back into the sand will ruin this excellent hole. It is a test of strength for the better than average player; it is a test of patience for the weaker golfer; and it is a test of extreme accuracy for the power players trying to cut the turn and weave through the tall, thin coconut trees that line the bend where the test of hope might just come into play. The final approach is a truly threatening shot, with that large complex on the right occupying much of the area preceding the green, that must fade its way in left of the sandy entrance. Leave it short and well left if you are planing on taking your time getting home.
It is not so much the design of the 17th, with its straight-on 100 metre wide fairway sandwiched between 250 metre long waste bunkers, that grabs your attention, but the enormous scenic beauty of the green's arena. You may want to swing with venom here, especially if you were stung by the difficult 16th, sending your ball as far down the wide track as you could for this is a hole well worth birdying. The waste bunker on the right continues even after the one on the left ends, and proceeds to surround the entire green save for the front and left entrance. The green itself is slightly elevated which will result in difficult sand shots over the crest and over the mounds that surround the green's edges. This entire setting is then framed by the Indian Ocean that will certainly be etched eternally in your memory.
The final hole plays as casually as the previous and takes you along the ocean with a waste bunker on the left mirroring the beach that the crashing waves froth upon, and a 300 metre long pond that runs all along the right side of the fairway. You can expect the forceful gusts to keep your ball out of the sand and so would do well to point your drive left of center. Water swings in close to the green to try to separate your target from the fairway and succeeding enough so that you will have to carry your approach to the flagstick. If you are thinking about fading, you should beware the large trap that awaits patiently in the front left. In fact the right to left setting of the green favors a draw over the water, utilizing the front entrance to turn through.
The writer is editor of The Asian Golf Review.