Chiang Mai, Thailand 2019
From Tony Colley
As a member of the Raffles team that travelled to Chiang Mai to compete in the Asia Cup against the teams from Pattaya Thailand, Taiwan and Guangzhou China, I thought I would put pen to paper to let you know how I enjoyed the week and whether I would recommend taking part next year.
This is my second time competing and the answer is a resounding yes!, I had a great time. I met some awesome new folk as well as caught up with some fantastic people from the last time, played some very enjoyable courses and if you only read to here, I would highly recommend that if you can then you join next year’s event. Next year it is set to take place in Hua Hin, Thailand and the courses there, I am told, are just as good if not better than in Chiang Mai.
The event itself was very well organised (all credit to those involved); transport to and from the courses a breeze, the evening events were a lot of fun and the overall experience was a very positive and enjoyable one. Our team captain Tim did a fantastic job organising things on our side and running the practice events earlier in the week, and we owe him a huge thanks for that. John, Robbie, Ben and Josh did a fantastic job with the transport and the competition rounds and another huge thanks from the Raffles team goes to those guys.
As for the Raffles team performance we unfortunately weren’t able to bring the trophy home though we all had a great time competing and there were some very closely fought but extremely enjoyable matches during both the first day’s teams’ event and the second day singles.
For the team matches, it was a great day with each match being an exciting down to the wire fight played in Great Spirit and I would like to thank our opponents for a truly wonderful day of golf. My partner however, did risk a great partnership by hitting one of my new balls in the water during the team Greensomes match; I let him off though as he was playing some good golf.
In the Saturday 18 hole singles I produced the game of my life to take a quite comfortable 7&5 win which meant I could relax and enjoy the last few holes. The Gassan Legacy Golf Course will forever hold a special place in my golfing memories because at the end of the 18 hole
s I had managed to break par and card a 1 under par 71. Admittedly we played off the white tees but with water in play on 16 of 18 holes it was no easy
ride.
A few of the other Raffles team performed well in the singles too and all in all we had another great day.
Overall, as a team I thought we carried ourselves pretty well for a bunch of old hackers especially considering we only had eight actual Raffles members. I would like to thank the four people from the other teams that filled in for us to give us a full team.
Think about joining us next year at Hua Hin. It is a great event!!
Barry Lyon on his way out for another
Larruping in Chiang Mai