DONE SEE BOLDS
DONE SEE BOLDS
Jababeka Golf & Country Club The World's Toughest Golf Course
You cannot consider yourself a true golfer unless you have visited Jababeka Golf & Country Club in Cikarang.
Easily accessible from central Jakarta at a distance of only 31 k.m. on the toll road, about 45 minutes by car, this 18-hole golf course, designed by Nick Faldo, offers you a beautiful panorama while you play. It is also known for hosting the 2002 Name of tournament here, attended by top professional golfers from around the world.
Measuring some 67 hectares in area, this golf course has many unique and challenging features.
Professional golfers like this course, with its eight-hectare lake and the highly challenging level of difficulty it offers. Jababeka has been dubbed "the world's toughest golf course", as anyone who has played here will tell you.
Jababeka is also a place where nature is highly regarded. Built between 1994 and 1996 at a cost of some US$13 million, the club has become a meeting point for golf professionals and well- heeled executives, says the town's developer and president- director of PT Jababeka Tbk, Setyono Djuandi Darmono.
Setyono says the club serves three functions: As a corporate flag carrier, as a valuable land asset and as a business networking center.
Golf courses are well known to be places where important business deals are made and Jababeka is no exception.
"Japanese companies require their employees to play golf as they can do business through golfing," Darmono said.
Given a 73-rating by the Indonesian Golf Association (PGI), an average of about 3,000 golfers play here every month. Many of them live in the Jababeka area, including expatriates from Japan, Korea and Europe.
Jababeka is a sporting landmark in Cikarang and comes with what you would expect from a world-class course -- a driving range, club house, pro-shop, an international-standard restaurant with 300 seats and a function room. But unlike other courses, Jababeka is not just a place to play golf -- it is part of an intergrated concept combining recreation, a residential area and an industrial estate -- a heady combination of lifestyle and commerce known as Jababeka City.
The concept, which is still in development, is that of a self-supporting city built with a residential concept along the lines of those in Hong Kong or Singapore.
On this 3,000-hectare plot of land you can now find 1,113 companies, including multinational corporations -- Unilever, ICI, Samsung Electronics, Nippon EGI (Sumitomo), Mattel, United Tractor, Nissin, Kao Indonesia, Video Glass Indonesia, Akzo Nobel and Stork.
Jababeka also has Jababeka Central Business District, an area measuring some 30 hectares.
On April 5, 2003, Plaza JB Mal Jababeka and Jababeka Center were officially opened here. The construction of the Capital Business Park, including a President Executive Club, is still under way and is expected to be completed later this year.
"Developing Cikarang is just like developing Las Vegas, the world's most sparkling city which was formerly just a barren plot of land," Darmono said.
But rather than gamblers, the next target group Jababeka wants to attract is students, Darmono says, which reflects his concern about the importance of education.
To encourage students to the area, he has set up a range of foundations, and a senior high school in what he calls the Jababeka Educational Park, which is already fielding programs from major universities from around the country.
"Education is the fundamental asset for our long-term economic development. Without intellectual skills and good morality, we are but nothing."
The park's President University, where English is the medium of instruction, can house 400 students and has students from as far away as China and Vietnam.