ST ANDREWS 2000 GOLF COURSE
You’re spoilt for choice when you go on a golf trip to Pattaya. But for a special experience, you’d do well to hit the links at St Andrews 2000. Its name hints at its attempt to replicate a links style. While English designer Desmond Muirhead created a wonderful course with many similar challenges to those famed courses in Scotland, it’s more accurately defined as a resort-style course with links accents.
It’s worth noting that this is a brute of a golf course. Par is 74, and at over 7,000m long, it will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t play from the appropriate tee boxes. Suck in your pride, take a chill pill, and you’ll probably have a better time here than trying to go against the elements.
One of the unique features of St Andrews 2000 is that it throws up not one but two par six holes at over 800 yards each. It may seem like it takes forever to get from tee to green at these monsters, but if you take it all in stride, and remember that getting on in regulation means four shots, then these can be fun to play. Of the two, the fourth hole features rock cropping and three ponds to thwart you from the task at hand. Shots that are straight and true are needed to escape the hole unscathed.
There are elevated greens, narrow fairways – some of them split – and huge putting surfaces, which makes getting on in regulation no guarantee of making par. But the course is wonderfully entertaining to play, with the back nine offering the greater challenge of the two halves. Luckily, the inward holes make up for that dastardly nature by giving you great views of the surrounding hills.
Playing St Andrews 2000 to some level of enjoyment requires lots of balls, a camera, and a nice dose of sense of humour. Oh yes, please lower your expectations as well. But this is one of the courses in the Pattaya area that is a mustplay. St Andrews 2000 is part of a three-course setup under the same management, and sharing the same clubhouse facilities. The other two are Rayong Green Valley Golf Course and Silky Oak Golf Course.
Facilities available include tennis, swimming and other water sports. You can even go horse riding or play pool in the games room. Indoor golf is available with the golf simulator, and live music is offered at the Albatross Dome. The T&R Tee Time Restaurant offers international cuisine, and meeting rooms that sit up to 50 people mean you can organise corporate outings here too.
getting there: St Andrews 2000 is about an hour’s drive from Pattaya City, and an hour and 40 minutes from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.