This month's golf news and features

2005 Annual Match Play Championship

The entry list (for members only) will be up in the clubhouse on 1st October. The draw for this competition will take place on Friday 14th and the preliminary round will be on Friday 21st at Springfield .

MATCH PLAY LEAGUE (4 BALL BEST BALL)

GOING TO PRESS THE LEADER BOARD WAS AS FOLLOWS

Name/S PL W L D PTS

MICK EVANS / NEUNG 7 4 2 1 13

LARRY ENGLISH / PETER DUNNE 8 3 1 4 13

ROBERT BAKER / MIKE ZIMMERMAN 8 3 2 3 12

MICK WITTERING / PER ERIKSSON 7 3 2 2 11

BARRY MOORE / JILL MOORE 7 2 1 4 10

OUT OF NINE PAIRS

Recent Results

23 August at Springfield 14 players (one group 0-36 hcp).

1st Fritz Schroeder, 37pts, 8 hcp. 2nd Chuan, 36pts, 9 hcp.

30 August at Royal Hua Hin 30 players (one group).

1st Barbera Anstee, 38pts, 24 hcp. 2nd Chuan, 35pts, 8hcp. 3rd Alan Rawson, 35pts, 23 hcp.

2 September at Palm Hills 27 players (one group)

1st David Moran (new member), 38pts, 24hcp. 2nd Ulf Sparuman, 36pts, 3hcp. 3rd Bill Battell, 35pts, 16hcp.

6 September at Lake View 36 players (one group)

1st Torsten (Guest) 35pts 13 hcp, 2nd Ulf 35pts 2 hcp, 3rd Peter Dunne 34pts 5 hcp.

9 September at Majestic Creek 23 players (one group)

1st John Rouhiala (Guest) 42pts 14 hcp, 2nd Enrico 39pts 16hcp, 3rd Peter Gouldby 38pts 8hcp.

13 September at Royal Hua Hin 26 players (one group)

1st John Pritloue 37pts 12hcp, 2nd Mick Wittering 35pts 19hcp, 3rd Heinz Dehnhardt 35pts 19hcp.

16 September at Kaeng Krachan 12 players (one group)

1st Brian Reeve 35pts, 19hcp. 2nd John Pritloue 33pts, 10hcp.

20 September at Springfield . A Group. B Group 19-36hcp

(not played at time of going to press)

GOLF SOCIETY – OCTOBER

FIXTURES

Tuesday 4th Royal Hua Hin

Friday 7th Springfield

Tuesday 11th Lake View

Friday 14th Palm Hills

Monday 17th Royal Ratchaburi

Friday 21st Springfield

1st Preliminary Round Match Play

Tuesday 25th Majestic Creek

Friday 28th Lake View

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Friday 21st October 1st Preliminary Round – Annual Match Play Championship.

December – Annual Stroke Play Championship 36 holes.

December 2 1st 2 Ball Charity Scramble at Lake View

December 21st 2 Charity Christmas and Annual Awards Dinner at the Dusit Resort.

Asian Tour

The newly established Asian Tour, which replaced the Asian PGA in January 2004, is receiving widespread support from corporate backers, golf associations and national PGA's, and is one of the fastest growing circuits in the world. In 2004 it held 22 tournaments with prize money of 12.3 million, a record for region. Already in the first half of 2005 there have been 14 tournaments offering over $11 million in prize money, all its events are accorded World Ranking status. The aim of the Asian Tour is to safeguard and enhance the careers of the regions players. There has been a continuous rise in playing standards and tour school in January 2005 saw a staggering 575 entrants competing for just 40 playing cards - a sure sign that the Asian Tour has gained acceptance as one of the main tours in the world.

Sponsorship Deal in Action

As reported last month, Hua Hin businessmen have started to sponsor local golfer John Wither on the Asian Tour. The results for John have been impressive.

Prior to sponsorship starting, he had played in six tournaments, only making the cut in one. Since Han Hakvoort started the ball rolling, John has played three - Brunei , Beijing and Singapore - and made the cut (and money) in all three. Indeed, his first day performance was such that he featured well up on the leaderboard – 17th in Brunei , 5th in Beijing and 9th in Singapore – ahead of the likes of Michael Campbell, Lee Westwood and Craig Parry. He has climbed in the Order of Merit from 130 to 89 in the last two weeks. Overall, John is happy with his performance – “I am learning and improving in every tournament, and I just need to keep it going” he said after Singapore . “That course was the most difficult I have ever played - the rough was so bad, you were lucky to find your ball, let alone be able to play it.” The fact that he was one of the few players not to record a double bogey or worse shows his game is up there with the best of them. But like a true professional, he is still working on improvements. “I need to be more consistent, and be up with the leaders all the way through, then all the people in Hua Hin can see me on the TV and my sponsors will get the exposure for the town that they need.” The list of Sponsors has grown and now includes, White Lotus Residence, Observer Construction, Hua Hin Business Centre, Asia Property Centre, Hua Hin Property Shop, Custom Clubmakers and La Grappa. There is also a Scottish connection – Simon Rouse, a regular visitor to Hua Hin has joined in – his restaurant in Edinburgh, Thai Orchid, is an official sponsor. Local resident Paul Frampton has also agreed to sponsor John, purely to further the game of golf locally. A big thank you goes to all of these people and businesses.

Details of all these sponsors can be found on the website: WWW.HuaHinHH.com please visit it. Anyone interested in further details on sponsorship please contact Barry Moore at The Road Hole or by email to mailto:barrypm@hotmail.com Next month we hope to bring you more news of success from John's next three tournaments in Taiwan (2) and China . Asian Tour The newly established Asian Tour, which replaced the Asian PGA in January 2004, is receiving widespread support from corporate backers, golf associations and national PGA's, and is one of the fastest growing circuits in the world. In 2004 it held 22 tournaments with prize money of 12.3 million, a record for region. Already in the first half of 2005 there have been 14 tournaments offering over $11 million in prize money, all its events are accorded World Ranking status. The aim of the Asian Tour is to safeguard and enhance the careers of the regions players. There has been a continuous rise in playing standards and tour school in January 2005 saw a staggering 575 entrants competing for just 40 playing cards - a sure sign that the Asian Tour has gained acceptance as one of the main tours in the world. Asia Vs Europe Team Event It has just been announced that there will be a “Ryder Cup” style event held between Asia and Europe . The event will be called The Royal Trophy and will be held in Bangkok at Amata Spring Country Club from the 5-8th January 2006. After that it will be held bi-annually. The event will consist of 8 players per team, 6 of which will be chosen according to each tours order of merit and world ranking, the order 2 will be captains choices. There will be a prize fund of $1.5 million, with $1 million going to the winners and $.5 million to the losers. Seve Ballesteros will captain the European Team, and the Asian Team Captain will be announced shortly.

Fit for Golf

This month I will be asking you some questions about your golf game and your physical wellbeing. Let's talk golf for starters. What do you find the most frustrating thing about your game? Is it that you continually slice or hook the ball? What about the start of the round being good and the last few holes ruining a good card. Are you satisfied with this or do you want to play better and enjoy each round you have? Take a moment or two to decide how you deal with this and whether you want to find solutions to the major problems with your game. Many of the golfers that put in hours and hours a week playing and practicing to improve their game never seem to get their handicap down. With a little work on their bodies they could make the game so much easier. Adjusting the swing to allow for an inflexible or dysfunctional body will only work for a short time then the swing will go to pot completely as the body can no longer adjust. Start by looking at yourself in the mirror and see what your posture looks like. There is a good chance most of you don't look like a guardsman! See how your shoulders are and check whether one shoulder is higher than the other. Stand side on to the mirror and see if the back has two nice small curves or a hump and massive arch. This will tell you something is not how it should be. Only when the body functions properly will the swing be made easy and more effective.

Now what about everyday life? How do you feel when you get out of bed in the morning? Do you bounce out and spring to the bathroom or does it take ten minutes to roll off of the mattress and shuffle out of the bedroom? It is the same as playing poor golf. If you don't have a functional body then it will tell you by putting you through pain. Your body hopes that you will wake up to the idea that it needs something to remedy what ever excesses you have exposed it to. Things like working hunched over a desk for the last thirty years. Ask yourself do you want to have more movement and be able to get around without wincing in pain every time you move. Would life be better if there were more things you could do easier like tying your shoe laces without nearly passing out or pulling a muscle? If you have any doubts about posture or whether your body is working to it's maximum potential then call me and I will assess how you stand and move to get you back on track.

If you would like your body more flexible to improve your golf then contact Terry at

www.fit-foregolf.com or call 01-0096588

State Of The Game

July is over and the world is afire with golf. The world's greatest pros were graced to play in Scotland at the oldest and greatest of all golf tournaments. Two of Thailand 's greatest were there while all the other locals moved across the Gulf of Siam , to Chonburi, to kick off the summer leg of the 5th year of the TPC Tour in Thailand . Boonchu Rangiatt couldn't match Hua Hin's Thaworn Wirachant's record 25 under from last year, but four solid rounds in the 60's secured him the title this year at the 7100 yard Burapa course.

It's one of those emerald green days in the land of The Emerald Buddha . The skies are covered in the cooling grey clouds of the rainy season, the hills and mountains are verdant with that special colour of green that is produced by those first few days of “new growth” on seedlings and the new shoots of the plants and trees that cover the hills and mountains that cradle this small piece of paradise next to the Gulf of Siam. Paradise ? Yes, paradise it truly is. We are now in the middle of the Golf Festival. There are 135 championship holes of golf to play within 20 miles of the downtown wharf (18 more are scheduled for opening in a very short time as Imperial Lake View will have a total of 36, and Head Professional Michael van Amelsvoort, at Springfield will be bringing into play the first 9 holes of their 2nd I8). Golf Festival stays in full swing the entire month of August and all the courses set green fees at 800 baht (yep that's just over 10 pounds or 15 Euros or just under 20 dollars US). So imagine you can play all the courses nearby in a week (let's here it for non-stop golfing and fishing) and if you add your green fees and caddy fees (caddies are required and caddies here will actually mark your ball for you if you so desire, let alone take it out of the cup for you) tips included, everything, I did say tips, everything and it totals up to around a hundred pounds. That's pounds sterling! All week!! Believe it!

August, Hua Hin, Golf Festival and Paradise are synonymous but I'm not going to give up all our secrets here just now, but believe me the people who are around now know what I mean. If you are willing to travel up to an hour either north or east of here you will find more excellent courses from the majestically beautiful Royal Ratchaburi, to Kaeng Krachan Country Club where the course borders on Kaeng Krachan National Park where the local residents (elephants, spotted leopards, tigers, bears, deer, you name it) have been calling the surrounding mountains home for the last millennium or so. Hey, let's make this better yet, let's add both Kaeng Krachan and Royal Ratchaburi (sorry no golf festival at those) with the other courses and on top of that while you are playing Saga Tailor will make you a custom three piece wool suit AND all of this, eight rounds of golf and a fine wool suit from Hua Hin's finest, Saga Tailor, for less than two hundred pounds (you can read this twice but there are no misprints here).

Hua Hin, every golfer should know this town. I didn't when I flew in a few years back. All I knew was there was at least one golf course and it was going to be another stopover spot on the golf map of the world. Petchkasem Road was not the two-lane tree lined, shaded country road of six years ago that people still reminisce about today. It is now definitely a six lane divided boulevard with a big highway by-pass, and it is not the small two-lane link from the snow-capped mountains of China through the “Golden Triangle” to the equatorial waters of Malaysia . You could say that the old highway and the famous Orient Express Railway became almost kissing cousins in Hua Hin, as the Malagasy Peninsula is just a thin sliver of the great and vast Kingdom of Thailand at this point. It is bordered by the Gulf on the east, and in the west, over the mountains, about five range buckets of KZG Drivers away, by Myanmar (known to some as Burma ). Still old timers and one old fart (not me I'm just a senior hacker) talk about the fact that Hua Hin has still retained the feeling of a small seaside resort town after more than 75 years since King Rama VI built Royal Hua Hin, the first golf course here.

The “State of the Game”, it almost sounds governmental, almost annual. After reading this article I'm sure there are many who feel it should be centennial if even that. Yeah I can hear Mick Wittering voicing his approval with a majority of the Scottish ex-pats adding a few harrumphs and not just “wee” ones. Just because Mick, who is Custom Clubmakers, is definitely one of the best club makers in Asia, and again has won almost a half dozen straight matches to put himself into the finals again for a chance to take home another championship at the Hua Hin Golf Society (Bernie you are going to have to cut that 5 handicap, cut cut cut), it doesn't justify the abuse I get from him and his crowd when I talk about golf (well maybe doesn't justify at least half of it). Pro club maker, club champ and 5 handicap, what does he know about the game of golf? Anyway, I want this to be something more than an update on the local Hua Hin pro and amateur scene, and add an observation and opinion on a couple of issues and see if we can get the pot stirred up a bit. Fore!!

The US “all exempt” PGA Tour is showing its mediocrity, as a child, a girl of 15, Michele Wie, outperformed almost half the field at the John Deere Classic. What's their line? “These guys are good”, maybe it should read “This girl and these guys...” Maybe it's time to go back to the Monday qualifiers of the pre- Deane Beaman all exempt days when there were some real characters on the Tour. I've got one for Tim Finchem, how about letting the top ten players in each nationwide tournament be exempt for the PGA Tour event two weeks thereafter. A guy could finish at the Nationwide in the top ten two weeks in a row and then would be able to play the next two weeks on the PGA Tour and get a chance to show his stuff. Is the Tour really trying to protect the retirement systems of 120 or so guys or do they want to get things “stirring” and get some new blood, maybe a real character (where are Chi Chi and Lee when we need you). Let's get really crazy and ask Tim for a total of ten spots for a Monday qualifier, oh sacrilege, that's 20 guys, new blood, new characters who would get their chance each week. Hey if you put up 30 or 40 spots for Mondays you'd have something probably ten times more exciting in one day than any four day Nation Buy dot wide.com Tour event. The Golf Channel would really love you too. The playoffs for the 30th spot would be thrilling. What's the problem, are you really that “good”, or just really “comfy”. The milquetoast is getting awfully soggy. Like a great song said, “Stir It Up”.

The European Tour has co-sanctioned a few more events with the Asian Tour to extend both tours into December (the Golf Channel really loves you guys). Tiger has affirmed that he will be at one of these co-sanctioned events, the HSBC Champions Tournament on November 10-13 at Shanghai Shesban International Golf Club. With 5 million US dollars prize money in its first year, this could end up being my wild card choice for a “real” fourth major championship competition (the fourth major is The PGA Championship ?????, my stomach curdles on warm milk, hold the toast). This event is actually co-sponsored by the European, Asian, Australasian and South African Tours. How about the fourth major being in a different country every year with 50% of the players from the PGA Tour, 20% from the European PGA Tour, 10% from the Japan Tour, 10% from the Asian Tour and the other 10% for the other tours, amateurs and anyone else who may deserve to be there but fell through the cracks. Every pro and club pro in the world would get a chance to qualify for this one, not just a big bunch from the USPGA at the PGA Championship! Is it really still a major?? It has all the prestige and history of the Open? Right! Come on give a guy a break! Who and why has it come to this, let's hear it for PGA Tour Gestapo Golf. Vat Ve say is Vat it is! Or is it when Coca Cola says hit it, they say how far. They should feel lucky that they can still call their final event the Tour Championship and not the Coca Cola Championship. The inside story on this one isn't nice but the Tour is now guaranteed to have their bread (not even toast) and butter soaked in Coke and milk. Yuucck. Stir me up some Tom Yam Gung.

The Asian Tour concludes its 12-month schedule here in Thailand a couple of weeks before Christmas as the Thai Country Club hosts the Volvo Masters of Asia. This is the Asian Tour “Tour Championship” all of our local Hua Hin golfers will be trying to get into or stay in the top 60 to qualify for this. Corey Harris of the US is looking for another superb long weekend, like he had in Malaysia when he shot 16 under par to win the qualifying event earlier this year that would propel him comfortably into the top 60. Prom Meesawat, a local former world champion junior golfer looks as if he might make this, his second year on the Tour, a “breakout” year. He continues his strong and extremely consistent form that has him at 24th in the order of merit. Thaworn Wirachant and Thongchai Jaidee (from Lop Buri) are currently one and two with a few tens of thousands of dollars separating them at about third of a million dollars each. It looks like the total purses this year will be near thirty million dollars. Simon Yates, long time Hua Hin'er of Scottish descent, is the newest millionaire on the Tour and has his place in the top ten solidified, confirming his status as the top young veteran golfer/skier in town. Smart money will be betting on him to be in the top ten when the snow is thick in the Sierra Nevadas and the Alps later this year. Prayad Marksaeng is a few positions behind Simon and will be juggling his Japan Tour and Asian Tour schedule, as does Thammanoon Srirot as they are again competing in a very full and rewarding year of competition. Another long time Scottish local, John Wither, a previous winner of the China Open, decided to come out of retirement and summer teaching in Europe and qualified for the tour along with all the young hard bodies. I'm sure he is finding it very enjoyable being close to his lovely wife Ya and family all year long. When you talk about The Road Hole in Hua Hin you would be referring to their restaurant and pub which is located behind the temple on Poonsuk Road . Great food, Ya's first class music and a big open and refreshingly cool layout makes this a popular spot. US Greg Hanrahan is running hard as seems to be his style. He was just back in town from Japan to participate at Chonburi but is back competing on the Japan Tour. With a second place finish on the European PGA Tour last year who knows where his name might jump up on the front page of the sporting section of the newspaper. Notice that I didn't say what newspaper or in WHAT country. His travel schedule for this year might have looked something like this, Thailand, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, China, Indonesia, Qatar, Korea, Brunei, China, Macao, Korea, Brunei and mix in a couple of more Thailands, Chinas and Japans in there and you can catch a glimpse of what the first half of the year has looked like for him. It's going to be an interesting story when somebody gets a chance to put down in writing what this enduring journeyman has seen in the last 20 or so years. In a couple more years Greg, you'll turn 21 years old again and be a newcomer, that's 21 plus 29. Choke Dee .

This year during Hua Hin's own Saga Tailor tour, Suwit Pahulo and Jorgen Perrson, again, as they did last year, battled back and forth for the Order of Merit title and the added monies from Saga Tailor that goes with it. Jorgen retained his title as this twenty plus event, professional “mini-tour”, with added monies, has proven itself a step up from the other similar tours that have tried to make it worldwide. The third season has just started again and the tour is looking to add four special events that they will call their “majors”. The first, Regal Thailand Properties Open, was scheduled for Sept 19 at Muangaew Golf Club in Bangkok as a one-day event for 150,000 baht in prize money. Regal Thailand Properties' involvement has made many people very appreciative of their interest in our local professional golf and they are looking forward to a continuing partnership. If you looked at the numbers of last year's tour it would probably show well over a hundred different people from dozens of different nations were laying their money down and teeing it up and trying to get it into the bottom of the cup. I've enjoyed it, and with that many different nationalities competing it has created a few interesting stories. Jaruk Thananuphan was constantly at the top of the board in these events but severe back problems were the biggest reason that he didn't end up on top in the end. Jaruk along with “Sammi” Nimauth, Suwit, Jorgen and Jim Smith are the busiest, but definitely not the only, PGA professionals teaching around town. Ask anybody involved in the game and they can guide you in their direction. Better yet, stop by the amateur golf, charity and competition headquarters, Bernie's Inn , home of the Hua Hin Golf Society, in the catacombs of the Night Bazaar near the Hilton Hotel for all the golf scoop. If you don't get it there just move down a few doors to Billy's Bar and by then you'll have become a local expert.

Thamanoon earlier this year went to Malaysia and qualified for one of the greatest Opens in a long time. It was an event that the biggest winner may easily have been the greatest course the game has ever seen, the Old Course at St Andrews . Magic is really not a word that is used often in golf unless you have set foot on, or better yet, played this wonder. Even then maybe magic doesn't do it justice. Thammanoon, how do you say magic in Thai, by qualifying and playing in the Open at the Old Course, you will always be a hero to everyone here in Hua Hin. This year, as in the past, “Golf Central” for the Open was at the legendary Frank Gilbride's Hua Hin Golf Centre. Located in the same exquisite teak accented building with Mick's Custom Clubmakers shop, Frank's “complete and total” range of golf services, headed by Canadian PGA Pro Jim Smith, is the finest golf facility in all of Thailand and a true golfer's dream come true. You can walk through the door and almost anything that you could wish for or desire in golf, accommodations and touring in Thailand can be provided for you at a standard that leaves nothing to be desired. Many folks passed through those portals for four days as the Open telecast averaged almost 10 hours a day (we devastated Frank's supplies of fish and chips over those four days at his famous Jasmines restaurant which is right next door).

During the tournament someone came in and made the mistake of saying that they thought that maybe the Old Course might not be able to stand up to the calibre of play for the modern majors anymore. Whoops and What? Take a look at the numbers, only one of the 80 players that made the cut was able to break 70 on both of the final two rounds (this is not a course that is tricked up and left to suffer and die thereafter by a bunch of semi-retired lawyers of the USGA. If you were to pay your fees and play there three weeks later you would be playing under the same conditions that they played on Saturday and Sunday). They played under the most favourable conditions that the tournament has ever been blessed with. The turf was as flawless as nature and the superintendent's crew could ever have hoped to attain. The ubiquitous sixty foot putts were laying down and rolling smoothly within inches of coming off of the putter's face and never bounced or even quivered as they continued to the hole and sometimes well beyond. The weather was as benign as it could be. I'm sure it had people constantly repeating the same question, how could the weather ever get better than this? (you know how the people on the Isles love to talk about the weather). These conversations were surely the shortest ever, with the response, never, used more often than not. Yes, the Old Course was at its most vulnerable and only one player, of the world's greatest, was able to break 70 on both of the final two rounds. That's One! You can count that on one hand. The course was a helpless entity to be pillaged and ravaged by the titanium-alloyed-composite-cast-COR-low-spin technology of the modern game and one and only one guy could get it around in the 60's. It looks to me as if the course is continuing to mature slowly and elegantly and maybe in the next two to three hundred years when it has started to reach its maturity I would love to be around when 95% of the field will probably not be able to shoot the final two rounds under 70 on sunny days when the wind may be a “wee bit” strong and the tide is changing. If I could have two wishes, one would be to be around then to be able to even dignify an answer to the question of the Old Course being able to stand the test of time for a major championship. Wish number two would be that if in that time (that's a couple of hundred years and I am a bit accident prone) I ended up being one of those unfortunate elders who is unable to respond to his friends and is staring off into space I would wish that my mind would be playing the loop of holes # 8 - 11 over and over again non-stop. Since I'm wishing and dreaming I'd like to see that 20-foot putt I had on #9 go in once or twice (hey Charlie and Brian I got #9 in).

With the Open finished and no Ryder Cup you could say that's it for another year of golf (Is the PGA Championship still really considered a major?). There is no greater sporting event in the world than the Open and it is always a great standard to use for the “State of the Game”. Here's a question. What's the State of your Game? I hope the answer is what every amateur should say “It's Fun!” I've tried to teach all my students two things over the years. One and number one is HAVE FUN! Number two, when you're out playing a round of golf, play for that “one shot” on every shot. What is that “one shot”? It's a shot that will create a story and a memory long after the score and the round have been forgotten. It's not a shot you can't make a million out of a million times (a three iron out of deep rough). It's a shot of perseverance, no matter what's happened on all the previous holes it's a shot that says you're never giving up until you've holed your final putt on 18. It's a shot like Tiger's second on #16 at Augusta this year. A shot I somewhat duplicated this year playing at Los Lagos in California with my oldest golf partner, Ralph Yob (he's not the oldest in age, that's Doc Burrell, who's almost 90, who was there that day). Granted Tiger's didn't dent the flagstick like mine did but they both ended up in the bottom of the cup for twos. As has been the case, many times in the over forty years that Ralph and I have played together, he put his “one shot” right on top of mine with a 65 foot putt that gave him a two also. Now if he really had managed a great “one shot” and got a hole-in-one at that hole he would have been able to shoot his age, but what the heck a 76 isn't all that bad. Ralph, all you need to do is get older, not better. If your “one-shot” is unique enough who knows how many beers folks might buy you to listen to your story about it at one of our local watering holes. Stop by the Hua Hin Golf Centre, The Jungle Juice, Johnny Walkers (Johnny is back from abroad and as a scratch amateur he's the one that all other amateurs will be gunning for) and see what they think of your great “one-shot”. I've lost count of the number of beers that I've been offered for my stories, well, I was actually offered the beers or any drink I wished, doubles included, to NOT tell my stories, but that's another story (come on Mick give a guy a break).

Choke Dee (Good Luck) in all you do, and many rounds of golf when you can't be fishing. Remember! Relax, Head Down, Gentle Grip, Slow Take-away, Inside Out, Watch the tee come out of the ground, Belt Buckle facing the target, and.. and.. and..... Have Fun! Choke Dee (you can never have too much Choke Dee).

Yes Mick you thought is was over but tough luck here's one after-thought. They are playing the World Golf Championship in San Francisco in the first week of October at Harding Golf Course (ask Coke and the PGA Tour how much it cost to renege on their promise for this course to be a site for the Tour Championship). This municipal course was completely remodelled under the design and supervision of the PGA Tour two years ago. I was lucky enough to be able to be in charge of the entire irrigation program for the grow in (thank you Mike Brassea for being right there with me, but what does two weeks non-stop on a chain saw have to do with irrigation? Well at least we were able to rationalize that since none of the trees were over six feet in diameter it must be safe, or at least it was after they finally got us that 36-inch Stihl. Mike, if only I was writing this in Britain I could tell them about that hundred-year storm. You know somebody once said they like to talk about the weather). So anyway I'm going to claim to be responsible for every blade of grass that you'll see growing there when the world's top sixty tee it up for this no-cut event.

Well what did you all miss in my little after-thought? Hhmmm? Yep, “municipal”, exactly what we're missing here in Hua Hin. A golf course owned by the people, the public, the local municipal government, a golf course for the average man, a golf course that the locals can play for 100 baht and juniors play for 400 baht a month. Tiger was a product of municipal golf, I was a product of municipal golf, and obviously all our similarities end there. Yet municipal golf allows golf to be a game for every man, not just country clubbers. I want to trade in my two previous wishes from before (yes, even #9) for a municipal golf course here in Hua Hin. I know, as you all probably know, that it takes a whole lot more than wishes to build a golf course, but the wishing is over and now it's time to Stir It Up!

The SAGA TAILOR Tour

Results from the latest “SAGA TAILOR TOUR” tournaments

Lake View DEsert : Monday the 22th august

Place Name Score OoM Prize money

1 simon yates 70 40 2900 Baht

2 tanin nim-oth 74 34 1700 Baht

3 kim dae woong 78 29 700 Baht

4 supavit tiansomboon 80 25 400 Baht

palm hills: monday the 5th of september

Place Name Score Oom prize money

1 blair wilson 71 40 4100 Baht

2 jorgen persson 72 34 2700 baht

3 tanin nim-oth 75 29 1500 baht

4 Steve Polaski 76 22,3 630 baht

4 kim dae hun 76 22.3 630 baht

4 suwit pahulo 76 22.3 630 baht

After 3 events on the 2005/2006 season of “The SAGA TAILOR Tour”

ORDER OF MERIT STANDINGS

Place Name OoM points

1 simon yates 80

2 tanin nim-oth 73.3

3 blair wilson 69.3

4 jakkrit tiensa-and 61.3

5 jorgen persson 49

6 krisada langwat 44.3

7 supavit tiansomboon 40.3

8 kim dae hun 39.3

9 kim hyung wook 34.3

10 jaruk thananuphan 30

Coming tournaments on the SAGA TAILOR Tour:

Monday 3 oct. Registration 08.00 Venue: Springfield

Monday 31 oct. Enter before 08.00 Venue: Lake view

Monday 14 nov. Registration 11.00 Venue: royal hua hin

Hope to see you all at our tournaments. And enjoy your golf!!!

Jorgen Persson Suwit Pahulo

PGA of Sweden Thai PGA

Phone 01-434 6540 Phone 01-856 4509

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