Golf Hazards

I'm baaack! Did you miss me? I didn't think so. Oh, well....here's my blog.

I played a quick 9-holes of golf today at one of the few public courses in Singapore, Green Fairways. It's a par 33 and the price is OK (for Singapore that is) at $42 SGD. The course is in a bit of rough shape but it's playable and all I was looking for today was to hit a few balls and get a bit of exercise.

Well, I got my exercise alright, the fairway is a roller coaster ride! Every single hole had an elevation difference from tee-box to green of 100 or so meters. Some fairways were just a straight incline but most of them formed a valley. So, it'll be a steep walk down from the tee-box and then back up as you get closer to the green. Most holes were around 250m long so if my trigonometry is correct that's a 20 degree pitch on average. With a temperature of 30 celsius and 90% humidity, I definitely had my workout for the day.

Having most of my fairway shots lie on an incline or decline is bad enough but there were monkeys to contend with as well. I kid you not. See for yourself with this pic I took with my camera phone.



I was pretty amused at first to see a monkey at the tee-box so I walked right up to him (it?) to get a good picture. But then he started to hiss and claw at me and it dawned on me that this little guy is a wild animal. Who knows what kind of disease he might be carrying. Thoughts of Ebola entered my mind but that's pretty silly if I think about it now. We're in Singapore, not Congo, after all.

There were 3 or 4 monkeys hanging around the bushes but I didn't encounter anymore after that first sighting. Instead, I had this hazard to worry about.



I didn't actually see any snakes but the sign was enough to add a few strokes to my game. A couple of my shots entered the edge of the woods. Normally, I'd go in, find my ball and save myself a penalty stroke. Not today. Those snakes can have my ball. Hopefully, they won't confuse it for an egg and try to hatch it.

With dangers like heat exhaustion, hemorrhagic fever and venomous snakes lurking about, doing Tai Chi in the park with the seniors doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Fore!