An Early Morning Walk, Chasing a White Pill, Isaan Thailand.

As I said yesterday, today I was going to spoil a beautiful morning walk by playing a round of golf with an Aussie mate. It had been a long time since I last swung a club and even leading up to the game didn’t even hit a practice ball. I had set a goal of shooting a 90 for the day.

Wing 21 or Ubon Ratchathani’s air force base golf course was the destination. I have played there numerous times but there have been a lot of changes since I last played, well over a year ago.

They are currently building another 9 holes and it is starting to take shape. This is going to be a very good thing for Ubon as we only have 9 hole golf courses and they can be very, very busy and rounds in the 5 to 6 hour range is common.

Unless you tee off when the rooster starts to crow, as we did. It was dark when we first arrived at 5.40am, the darkness was just lifting. There was a heavy dew across the ground and mist hovered above the fairways, plus it was cool.

We were the second group to tee off, another had set off in the near dark. It is good having clear fairways and my playing partner, Mr.T and I enjoyed the crisp clean air.

As we headed down the 2nd fairway the sun was starting to poke its head above the horizon and break through the trees.

There have been some changes, as I said. This par 3 third, has had a huge dam dug between the tee and green, the earth was obviously used on the new course.

I like this as it makes it much more challenging for the lesser golfers. It is probably only a 110 yard water carry and the hole in total is only 180 yards in length. For most the water isn’t a worry but others would be pulling out their oldest ball they have.

This is the other par 3 eighth; it is very short being 115 yards in length but the water again is the intimidator for many. It isn’t even a full wedge to the green but would put doubt in some golfers.


No excuses though, the course in all was good, the golf in all was average and at times terrible, and others disgraceful. As you can see from my card above. The left is the first nine holes and on the right is the second nine holes.

I started out with a double bogey after hitting three good shots to be 20 metres off the front of the green but being rusty it took another 4 shots to get into the hole. A chip and 3 putts.

The putter was not hot and I wasn’t expecting it to be. I had 34 putts for the round. There were three 3 putt greens and one 4 putt green (from 15 feet). I wasted 5 shots in lateral water hazards. There were plenty of negatives.

In the end I had a 94 off the stick, so many shots left on the course. The longer irons weren’t too bad, short irons, especially pitching or chipping were terrible as I expected and putting I had no feel at all. So in all I am pretty happy with the 94.

My playing partner in crime today, Mr. T and I are going to try and get out more often, and Thursday is a public holiday so we could be heading out for 9 holes or 18. Then we will try and get 9 holes in each weekend. Tee off at 6am and finished by 7.30am.

That is the plan, we will see how it goes and also hopefully the progress I make as some small amount of feel comes back into my game. No miracles but over a few months I hope to get the scores down to the low 80’s. We will have to wait and see.

Returning home I was met by my beautiful niece Nong Ja at the door and in no time we were outside playing with Lily the dog.

Lily the dog.

As usual we picked Nong Ja up on Friday afternoon from the village and we will have her until next Monday as Miss Noot is off University all this week.

I was a little tired and put the straw mat onto the ground and laid down to watch Nong Ja and Lily play, soon I was joined by them.

Nong Ja is a great kid, as I have said many times, ‘we love her to death as if she is our own daughter.’ Right now as I turn around she is dead asleep on the bed. We had a big day. A trip to the supermarket, then to the park, then off to a night market and Nong Ja was then well and truly pooped. She won’t stir again now until sometime between 5.30 - 7am.

Miss Noot will be praying for the latter indeed.

Brunty