Cassia Cup 2018
Forest City And The Golden Bear
The new Forest City Golf Resort is the latest sensation to hit the Johor golfing scene. Poised to attract well-heeled golfers from all over the world, this 800-hectare development offers up a splendid stay and play option, with the luxurious Forest City Golf Hotel and an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Design golf course right at its doorstep. Jointly designed by the legendary Jack Nicklaus and his son Jack Nicklaus II, the flagship ‘Legacy Golf Course' is the first of three 18-hole golf courses featured in the blueprint of this mega golf resort project. Built at an investment
cost of RM350 million, the Legacy Golf Course features immaculate Paspalum fairways carved out of a charming peninsula of mangrove forests.
"Jack Nicklaus in his design optimized the existing environment to create a challenging international standard tournament golf course that can be enjoyed by the average golfer and yet challenging enough for the professional golfer," said Arthur Yeo, Golf Club General Manager and Golf Course Project Director of Forest City Golf Resort.
This par 72 course measures 7,386 yards from the back tees, but offers several tee box options, typical of a Nicklaus design. Well-placed bunkers and the wetland terrain, create plenty of excitement, with strategic water in play through 7 holes. Golfers will find some reprieve with the wide fairways and waste bunkers that flank many of the holes, providing an additional buffer zone against wayward shots.
The relatively small and undulating Paspalum Platinum greens are an absolute delight, with interesting swales and elevation changes. You can expect some dramatic bounce-ins and roll offs on these immaculate greens. Almost always, the best approaches into these greens tend to favor a fade, in a tip of the hat to the Golden Bear's style of play. The course is challenging but enjoyable even for the less gungho with generous bail out areas around the greens. Although resort-like for the most part, the course can be set up to play easy or tough, based on the tee and pin locations.
Don't let the friendly course yardage fool you, measuring 6,777 yards off the blue tees, and just 6,158 yards off the whites. The course requires strategic thinking, with the risk-reward design elements particularly amplified on a windy day. The course has a good variety of holes, with beastly long holes like the 4th Hole par 4 measuring 462 yards off the blues juxtaposed against some shorter holes like the driveable par four 6th and 11th holes.
A well-struck blow over the water on the 305-yard 6th hole off the blues can reward you with an eagle putt, but a less than perfect attempt might and your ball faces the prospect of a watery grave. The 11th Hole though longer at 347-yards, is a little more forgiving requiring a shorter 254-yard carry across the lake. For the less aggressive player, a cautious tee shot to the fairway on the right will leave you with a testy second shot over a beach bunker onto the green. It's pretty easy to chalk up some big numbers on these shorter holes. In every great design, there are holes that remind you that distance isn't
everything, holes that tell the story of how ‘Plotting Penelope' took down ‘Big Swinging Bruno'.
The signature holes on this course are the 3rd and 4th Holes. Both tee off to fairly wide fairways with mangrove wetlands running along the right side of these glorious holes. Although the fairways are quite generous, both holes cunningly entice you to flirt with the water in an attempt to put yourself in the best position for that next shot. Off the tee on the par five 3rd Hole, golfers will be tempted to carry the fairway bunkers on the right. Then, you must decide whether to contend with a narrow pinched-in neck of the fairway or that testy pot bunker to put yourself within an optimal wedge distance to the green. Laying up short onto the widest part of the fairway would require a longer approach shot over water onto this small and angled green. Notwithstanding, a par is still a distinct possibility here unlike the next hole, which is the course's longest par 4, measuring 462 yards off the blues. The 4th Hole is a magnificent challenge with a waste bunker traversing the entire right side of the hole. The length makes it hard to reach the green in regulation, yet it challenges you to attempt the ideal tee shot across the waste bunkers on the right, risking all the hazards. This is one of the most picturesque greens with the river and palm trees as a backdrop. With strong winds, a bogey can feel like a par on this hole.
The glorious manicured grass stands in stark contrast to a surrounding sandy landscape, populated with native grass and coconut trees interspersed across the fairways. Coupled with the majestic riverside mangrove vegetation, the course aesthetic is a unique blend of Arizona Desert meets the Southeast Asian Tropics.
Jack Nicklaus II shared this, “We work side by side to develop a golf course strategy and guide its evolution to reality. Forest City Golf Resort began as a peninsula of land rich with mangrove forest and accompanied with native wildlife and flora. It was our goal to preserve the natural environment while creating a fun and competitive golf facility that would provide many years of golf recreation and education. We did just that.”
The Forest City Golf Resort is a part of the massive RM 170 billion Forest City project spearheaded by China's Country Garden group. Conveniently situated in the Southern Gateway to Malaysia within the Iskandar Puteri vicinity, the resort is just 23km from the Tuas Checkpoint between Singapore and Malaysia, and 44km from the Senai International Airport in Johor. When taking the Second Link from Singapore, exit the highway almost immediately after the Johor Immigration
and Customs.
In addition to the Forest City Golf Hotel and the Legacy Golf Course, which are ready and open for business, there are other residential and leisure development plans in the pipeline. Currently also under construction is a second 18-hole course, designed by Liang Guo Kun, which should be ready for play by September 2019. After which, there are plans to build a third 18-hole course which will make Forest City an integrated 54-hole golfing destination in its own right.
The 5-star Forest City Golf Hotel offers more than 300 well-appointed rooms ranging from superior rooms to deluxe family suites. There are also meeting and conference facilities, dining venues, retail outlets and a full range top-of-the-line golf pro shop. Forest City Golf Hotel is an attractive accommodation option even for non-golfers with the Fisherman Wharf Commercial Shopping Street within Forest City located a 5-minute drive away. The hinterland of Johor's attractions remains easily accessible with places like the Legoland theme park and the Aeon Mall Bukit Indah just a 30-minute drive from the hotel.
In conjunction with the Grand Opening on 1 September, Forest City Golf Resort also hosted its first ever Forest City Media Cup Tournament. International Golf Media and Chinese Golf Media battled it out in this Ryder Cup-style event in a series of Fourball, Foursomes and Singles matches over 2 days. The International Golf Media team, represented by players from Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Australia, and Indonesia, emerged as winners of this inaugural event.