TIME TO LET FLY

After two years of being grounded, border restrictions have finally eased enough to entice the holiday maker. Still, I hadn't yet planned on leaving on a jet plane anytime soon. Then I got wind of the Amazing Thailand social golf trip to Phuket and reminisced to when I was last there some 20 years ago on a boys trip. I recall Red Mountain Golf Club to be a crimson colour for more than the earth as it ran red with my blood, the course having devoured me then. It was a blood bath.

The Amazing Thailand ad was inviting, with the spanking new Aquella Golf Resort & Country Club one of the featured courses, and I was game to go up against the Red Mountain course again after two decades.

And as fortune would have it, in a flurry and a blink of an eye I was checking in at Changi Airport. It was almost surreal. Somewhat at a loss with little to no knowledge at the new check-in procedures, I needn't have worried. Asking always helps.

With some minor changes, travelling isn't much different than it was before, and in next to no time I was standing on the first tee of the pristine Aquella course, elated and thankful for the opportunity to tee up on foreign soil for the first time in more than two years.

Travel is gearing up fast and neighbouring countries like Thailand are eager to welcome back Singaporeans to experience the long missed sensorial pleasures associated with tourism. If you missed out on the Amazing Thailand social trip to Phuket and the travel bug has bit with golf foremost on your mind, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has another pay-and-play package in the works for this July to Bangkok with top notch courses like Amata Spring Country Club, Alpine Golf & Sports Club and the new Siam Country Club Bangkok.

Who's game?