Y is for avoiding the Yips. Everyone gets them at one time or another when playing golf in Thailand. Whether on your first holiday round at an easy course like Lakewood Golf Club in Bangkok or one of the more challenging Pattaya golf courses, the yips can damage a golfer’s holiday confidence and ability to golf in Thailand to their potential. It’s almost as painful watching a golfer with the yips, and then it is to actually having the Yips. Just yesterday at Thai Country Club I cringed every ti...

W is Worm Burner. I regularly play with holidaymakers just arriving for their Thailand golf vacation. As they are so excited to start their Thailand golf holiday on the right foot (no pun intended), it is saddening to see their frustration as they tee it up for the first time only to hit a worm burner, Sally Gunnell or thin topped shotWhile this shot might be acceptable when playing on dry golf courses in the USA or Europe, it is a disaster at most Thailand golf courses. Take for example, Thai...

U is for Under Club. In terms of playing, this is what 90% of golfers in Thailand do throughout their vacation. I often hear Thai golfers bragging how they once hit their 7 iron to the green on the 160 yard par 3 16th hole at Thai Country Club or caught a great 8 iron that just made the front edge of the island green 145 yard 17th hole at Khao Kheow in Pattaya. Well of course these were their best shots, downhill and probably down wind, but they all come to think that’s their average distance.&n...

S is for Sixty degree wedge. More and more golfers coming on a Thailand golf vacation carry a 60 degree or lob wedge. However, I feel the sixty degree wedge in Thailand can actually add strokes to most people on a golf vacation. The tropical Thailand weather already lends itself to damp playing conditions, and the greens on the best courses such as Alpine Golf Club in Bangkok or the new Black Mountain Golf Club in Hua Hin hold the ball amazingly well, thus negating some of the normal lob wedge a...

O is for Off day. Learning to manage your game on an off day when golfing in Thailand is one of the most difficult things to do. Anyway, after the anticipation and excitement of planning and spending a large amount of time and money to get to Thailand, the last thing you want is to have a poor golf game ruin your trip. Yet if you can successfully learn to get the most out of your golf  when you don’t have you’re “A” game, your scores will be a lot better and your golf trip will be much mor...

L is for Love of golf. If you don’t love golf, golf will not love you. OK, that was a bit corny and owning a golf company, I am definitely not unbiased, but there is some truth in that. The ones who truly love golf, especially golf in Thailand, tend to get the best out of their game and golf seems to give everything back. What does loving golf mean? Without being too philosophical, loving golf is more than just enjoying it, it’s respecting the rules, the etiquette and, in Thailand, the courses...

J is for Jitters. First tee jitters are common golfing in Thailand, but exactly what are they and how do you overcome first tee jitters? That feeling, on your first day of your Thailand golf vacation where you can hardly put the tee in straight, you’re mind and heart are so excited and all you do is hope to god that you make contact (any contact) with the ball and send it past the Thai ladies tees. After all, besides spending the last 3 months or more indoors, your golf round in Thailand is the...

H is for Hero. Don’t be one. We all try to be a hero at some stage when golfing in Thailand by hitting a 250 yard 3 wood over water, around trees, or to one of those sucker pins cut 5 feet from the water at a course like Alpine Golf Club.  If you don’t care about your score, go ahead and hit that shot, or for that matter try your 7 iron after you hit an errant tee shot into the Thai jungle. You have a 1% chance to advance your ball through that opening in the trees the size of a keyhole. Y...

F is for having Fun. Yes, golf in Thailand is supposed to be fun. What frame of mind are you in when having fun? Relaxed, and when you’re relaxed, swinging the club is easy. Therefore, I wonder why, when golfing in Thailand, I always see some players walking the golf course without smiling the whole day and don’t seem to be enjoying it at all. Golf professionals may look a bit stiff on television, but deep down most of them are enjoying it when they’re in contention. The fact that most of us ...

D is for dead aim. The late Harvey Penick, one of golf’s greatest teachers, in spite of never managing to play golf in Thailand, used to say “take dead-aim”. Golfers I see at Thailand golf courses moan to themselves when they hit it far left or right of their target. When I watch these golfers closely, I am often surprised at how much time they look at their club and ball and how little time, if at all, they look at where they are trying to hit their golf ball. I figure that this is because mo...

B is for buying a diver.The driver, the big dog, the big stick, whatever you want to call it, its one of the most important clubs in Thailand. The old saying “Drive for Show, Putt for Dough” is outdated and whilst it still carries some truth, if you can’t get off the tee and into the fairway when playing golf in Thailand then you’re going to be struggling just to make bogey or risk worse for that hole. Think of your most skilled golfing friends. I bet most of them are good drivers. Unless you ...

In most golfing countries, spring is here or just around the corner. Therefore, I thought it good timing to start a series of posts, each a unique alphabetic letter and covering interesting, sometimes serious or sometimes light hearted, Thailand golf tips. These will be my original golf tips I have collected or came up with over the years playing golf in and traveling to Thailand. They should be useful for both persons here on Thailand golf packages as well as Thailand golf residents. I would lo...

Sometimes, like me, I am sure your work, family, budget, or the weather prevents you from taking a Thailand golf vacation or just playing golf as often as you like. We either play infrequently, or worse, need to take long breaks from getting out to the golf course. Scores are generally not very good with the short game suffering the most during these layoffs. This is further compounded because the short game is also relatively more important during the first round after coming back from a layoff...

When playing golf in Thailand it pays to plan carefully for all par 3 holes.  Most Thailand golf courses have four par 3’s which the average golfer can reach.  Pars on these holes can do a lot for your score and give you a psychological lift.  Double bogeys or worse double par can easily ruin an otherwise good round, so it pays to approach these holes also with a certain caution and correct club selection is the key to success. Here are the four steps that I use to slect th...