My golfing career (continued).

12.5.2008.

As I said, in my early "golfing career", 36-hole weekends were common. Getting hooked late, it was as if I was making up for lost time. 4.30 didn't come fast enough, I couldn't wait to rush to the Club for 9 holes, though usually the office meetings took care of that. Because there were not many golfers in the office at that time, and we were talking about golf most of the time, it sounded like there was nothing else that we did. So much so our Big Boss Raja Alias was supposed to have said ( I say this because I never heard it directly from him, nor did I see any memo to that effect) officers shouldn't take leave to play golf. So I didn't. I mean when I played golf during office hours, I didn't take leave, just as instructed. 

I have never seen Raja Alias play golf. Once while vacationing at Fraser's Hill we met one morning at breakfast at the chalet we happened to share, and I told him I played golf yesterday, and he said he would have joined me if he knew. That was the closest we came to playing together.

The next time was at Saujana when he gave away the prizes and said I play all the time as I took the second prize. I don't think he's anti-golf. I think he was jealous of us. 

There was the story that when he was the State Development Officer of Pahang, he played golf with the State Forest Officer at the now Royal Pahang Golf Club on the morning of one Hari Raya Haji.. Now, the official residence of the MB is just next to the course. The MB saw these two top Malay officers playing golf on Hari Raya morning, instead of going to the mosque for Hari Raya prayers. The next day they were called in and given an earful. That was when Raja Alias changed. But he didn't hate golf, I don't think. He just stopped playing, and wish we all could join him.

I have played all over the world, really. I have played in all the old traditional clubs in all the Peninsular States from Perlis to Johore. I have played at the oldest golf course in Malaysia, in Taiping, which is now sadly closed. I have played in Sabah and Sarawak. I have played in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. I have played in Australia. I have played in England . I have played the legendary Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland . I have played in the US. And I have also played, in December, in Sweden. Brrrr ! 

So I have now come to the conclusion that a real golfer must achieve three things in his lifetime to say that his career in the game is complete. He must play to a single-digit handicap; he must get a hole-in-one; and he must play at the Old Course at St. Andrews. And I'm glad to announce that I have achieved this status. I have gone down to a career lowest of handicap 6; I have played at the Old Course in 1989; and I got my hole-in-one at the A'famosa on July, 22nd., 1997. (to be continued).

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