Marcels Page

Flight @ Black Mountain, Final Day (fltr Gareth Owen (Australia), Me (NL), Rigo Skara (Germany and Joakim Reinius (Sweden)

🙂 Read here all about Marcel Schlimbachs personal experience during the 2010 World Golfers Championships in Thailand, Hua Hin (October 30 – November 5, 2010).

For my personal photos see my Facebook-webpage.

See YouTube for my 8 personal videos:

• Party @ the centre of Hua Hin (part 1; November 2, 2010)
• Party @ the centre of Hua Hin (part 2; November 2, 2010)
• Party @ the centre of Hua Hin (part 3; November 2, 2010)
• WGC end ceremony – Swiss golf coach and famous Schwedisch bariton Carry Persson speeches and sings ‘Walk On’ (part 1; November 5, 2010)
• WGC end ceremony – WGC World Champion Flight 21-25, #1 Igor Knyazev (Russia; 284), #2 Ramnivas Boob (India; 287), #3 Vithaya Lerdsumritkarn (Thailand; 289)
• WGC end ceremony – WGC World Champion Flight 16-20, #1 Zsolt Bohacs (Hungary; 281), #2 Andrey Pelevin (Russia; 282); #3 Lukasz Ostaszewski (Poland; 286), Flight 11-15, #1 Ronny Widjaja (Indonesia; 286), #2 Wantha Decha (Thailand; 289), #3 Mikail Movsesyan (Armenia; 293); Flight 6-10, #1 Utpal Desai (India; 287), Ekatarina Boldyreva (Russia; 288), #3 Bill Nitcholas (USA; 291)
• WGC end ceremony – WGC World Champion Teams, #1 Russia (1.144), #2 Spain (1.152) and #3 Thailand (1.156) / fault = Indonesia (#4; 1.159)
• WGC end ceremony – WGC World Champion Flight 0-5, #1 Doug Hannaford (Australia; 299) #2 Ruslan Garkavenko (Ukraine; 300), #3 Paul Goering (USA; 301)

See also the official World Golfers Championship Presentation.

*****
The World Golfers Championship – worlds largest amateur Golf Championship
The WGC is the world championship for amateur golf players that begins with the national qualifications in different countries around the world. The WGC gives the amateur golf sport the power and prestige of an official world championship. In the WGC the golf players play in a team and in an individual competition.
*****

“My experiences @ the World Golfers Championship” –
by Marcel Schlimbach

Marcel Schlimbach @ Imperial Lake View, Thailand

Dear all,

I will remember Thailand, Hua Hin, as a great golf destination. It was really amazing in golf minded Thailand! We had a great time in this golfers Paradise 🙂

Our goal was to enjoy the world golf event and we kept in mind that we all were qualified winners and lucky guys to have the opportunity to play in this amateur golf world championship for the Netherlands and on the very beautiful Thai golf courses. Black Mountain and Banyan are close to perfection.

I first like to thank my team mates Rob (our captain and Lob for Thai caddies), ‘small question’ Deo, Winston (new leader of the Polish gang) and my roommate René (alias Lené) for the perfect connection during our golf trip. “Guys, you were as amazing as Thailand. Thank you for all the fun!”

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Caddies, C.S. (India), Hans-Günther (Austria) and William (USA)

Second I like to thank all my WGC playing partners in the world finals:

• Black Mountain, Practice Round 1: WGC world champion (11-15) Ronny Widjaja (Indonesia), Alessandro Marchese (Italy)
• Banyan, Practice Round 2: C.S. Subramaniam (India), Hans Günther Löckinger (Austria), William Criteser (USA)
• Majestic Creek, Competition Day 1: Matthew Pravda (South Africa), Artem Kryvonos (Ukraine), Rigo Skara (Germany)
• Imperial Lake View, Competition Day 2: Artem Kryvonos (Ukraine), Wantha Decha (Indonesia), Gareth Owen (Australia)
• Banyan, Competition Day 3: Artem Kryvonos (Ukraine), Alex Bocharov (Russia), Wai Chon Sou (Macau)
• Black Mountain, Competition Day 4: Gareth Owen (Australia), Rigo Skara (Germany), Joakim Reinius (Sweden)

Marcel with 'Verberkmoes Golf Clubtechnics' parasol

Marcel with sponsored Bridgestone B330RXS Golf Ball

Then I like to thank all our official suppliers (sponsors) and especially my own contacts, mr Ad Huisman from private bank Staalbankiers (Eindhoven), my personal golf club fitter mr Bert Verberkmoes (Bergeijk) and mrs Svenne Prinsen from Bridgestone Golf in the Netherlands, for their support and enthusiasm.

Then last but not least I like to thank the WGC organisation and the Thai tourist board for the fantastic organised Championship. Of course there are chances for the WGC organisation to develop and upgrade the tournament together with the South African organisation for the 2011 WGC in South Africa.

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The 4 Golf Courses
We played at 4 different golf courses: the perfect Black Mountain, the beautiful and very good Banyan, the reasonably good Imperial Lake View and the disappointing Majestic Creek. Special things were the short briefings, getting your scorecard and finding your caddie and golf cart, the practice (from grass except for Black Mountain), the start with hearing your name (“On the tee box from the Netherlands …”) and with the photographers at the start and on the golf courses. A bit different then most of our normal golf competition days.
According to us Black Mountain is the best of the 4 golf courses and the golf course is only 1 year old. Ranked as the 3rd best golf course of Asia Pacific, which can be true. The course is a real championship course with very speedy greens (stimp speed: 11.0), unexpected grain, lot’s of wind and water, (heavy) Bermuda grass, deep bunkers, PGA prepared with 3 layers. Drive needed on par 3 holes was quiet normal! Amazing views and a lot of very beautiful created details on and off the golf course. A beautiful clubhouse with very nice employees (one of them was called ‘Nice’).
The clubhouses, the golf shops and the locker rooms are impressive. When you check in, you feel you are very welcome and you experience all the perfect facilities that make you feel like a PGA Tour professional.

For Black Mountain and the other 3 golf courses see our ‘4 Golf Courses’-page.

Caddie Puy (22 years) and me at Black Mountain

Mathew Pravdas and my caddie at Majestic Creek

My caddie @ Imperial Lake View

Caddie Fon (26 years) @ Banyan

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Good Banyan caddie Fon (134)

The caddies
In the 7 days we have played golf I had 6 women and 1 man (Majestic Creek) as a caddie. I personally was lucky to have reasonably good caddies (the best were Puy @ Black Mountain and Fon @ Banyan, who was my caddie there on both days) and they spoke a little bit (just enough) English. The caddies were exceptionally knowledgeable about the game of golf, but they don’t play golf themselves! They repair your divots and pitch marks, they mark your balls (what was not allowed during the 4 competition days), the clean your clubs (with a towel and a brush), the give you the yardages (to the pin, to the water; the exact yardages and the yardages to play (with wind)), the aiming point, they tell you if the green is flat-downhill-uphill-slow-medium-fast-really fast, some give you the club that you need, some doubled my scorecard for taking it home as a souvenir and they clean the golf cart. And after one round I knew I really needed the caddie and if possible a good one. What is a very interesting thing is that every day the exact yardages from the tee to the pin are measured. So at the par 3 you have the exact distance in yards to the pin. That is something that would be nice to have in the Netherlands. Most funny moment was at Black Mountain when one caddie said that another golfer should play to the right side over a hill and he didn’t do that (enough). She said: “Not enough light!” And of course the sun was shining fully and there really was enough light.

Marcel Schlimbach @ Imperial Lake View, Thailand

My personal golf performance
I played in the 11-15 handicap flight. With 3 nett rounds in the 70’s (73, 77, 75) and a poor starting round @ Majestic Creek with the terrible hole positions and strong wind (85), I finished at the 22^nd place with 310 strokes, 24 strokes behind world champion Ronny Widjaja (Indonesia; who I actually beat on the first practice day @ Black Mountain) and only 11 strokes behind world champion Doug Hannaford (Australia; flight 0-5). Normally I really putt well, but at the world final in Thailand my putting was really terrible except for the last day @ Black Mountain. I have never made so many 3-putts in my golf life. The Bermuda grass greens where very large and so speedy (stimp speed 11.0 @ Black Mountain) that I never really found the good pace. The grass grows towards the sun and the slopes and the lines were difficult to read. “Putting was everything” this week and it was not my week at the greens.

Wikipedia: “A downside to Bermuda greens is the cost of maintenance, and the existence of grain (the growth direction of the blades of grass affects the ball’s roll and is called the grain of the green). The slope or break of the green also affects the roll of the ball.”

Then we played @ PGA prepared course with 4 layers (fairway, 6-foot-wide strip of intermediate rough, first cut of primary rough measuring 1,5 to 2 inches in depth and the second cut of rough measuring 4 to 6 inches in depth), had everyday so much wind, all courses had so much water in play, a lot of (deep) bunkers with tough sand and strong Bermuda grass rough. I had problems with my chipping from under 40 yards and stopping the golf balls at the right place. The last day I chipped a lot with my iron 8 and that worked out a bit better; but it was already the last day!.
Everyday I have played in a plusfour (golf knickers). I brought 4 of them: red, white, dark blue and yellow. I wear them since 1990 and the reason is that I am a Payne Stewart fan since the 80’s.

The mental golf part
I’m very well challenged on the mental golf side but I really managed quiet well:

• I played shot for shot and concentrated pretty well
• I trusted every shot and putt and I have accepted the missed ones very well
• I managed to handle the slow play (over 6 hours!), even if I never had the feeling finding my rhythm
• I never gave up
• I stayed relaxed and enjoyed all days except the Majestic Creek experience (‘Mickey Mouse’ golf course)

And of course I had my traps:

• frustration @ Majestic Creek because of the series of 3 putts and having the holes at slope sides at the greens at almost every hole
• frustration after losing 4 shots because of a golf ball swap incident (2 shot penalty, 1 shot already played and 1 shot playing from the old spot)
• frustration about 2 completely missed puts @ Banyan because of getting the totally wrong advise from the caddie who I trusted completely (short after the penalty shots incident)

For my mental golf workshops, mental golf clinics, my special mental golf experience, personal golf coaching, and golf & business speeches, please visit www.par4.eu.

Personal golf ball (fitting): Bridgestone B330RXS golf balls
I played all days with the perfect Bridgestone B330RXS golf balls, which were sponsored by Bridgestone Golf in the Netherlands (thanks Bert en Svenne!). As the Bridgestone quote says ‘Fit it. Boom it, Believe it.’ Now I really believed in the golf balls and it wasn’t the golf ball that didn’t performed well at the putting green; it was just me struggling with the pace on the very quick greens. In the coming golf ball fitting in the Netherlands, Bergeijk, Bridgestones Svenne Prinsen and my personal golf club fitter Bert Verberkmoes will let us discover the best golf ball for our personal golf game. Are you playing the right ball for your game?
The good thing is also that I only lost 1 Bridgestone golf ball during the 4 competition rounds. So we had a perfect match.

World Champion Ronny Widjaja (Indonesia), Marcel Schlimbach and Alessandro Marchese (Italy)

The international golfers
The best experience was meeting all the very interesting passionate golf players from 23 countries. I will remember:

• Italian Alessandro Marchese (alias Manassero because of his beautiful swing and shots; “Alessandro, you were the best golfer I’ve played with in Thailand.”)
• Aussi and world champion Doug Hannaford and Aussi Jim Mccollum (we drank a few beers and chat a lot about the WGC tournament, women etc.)
• Sir Attila Hegyi (Hungary) – we had several very interesting chats about golf, golf courses, women etc. (“Attila, Top! And thanks for inviting me for Budapest.”)
• Mathew Pravda and his wife Anisha (South Africa; “I loved the very difficult round with you @ Majestic Creek; we both struggled all day but you managed it a bit better. And thanks for inviting me for South Africa.”)
• C.S. (India) who gave all of us so many compliments at Banyan (thanks C.S. for the nicest round with you, William and Hans-Günther)
• The very charming Prince Eddy Peters (Nigeria; “Eddy, it was very nice meeting you!”)
• Artem Kryvonos (Ukraine); we’ve played 3 rounds together (“Thanks Artem for the nice rounds.”)
• World champion Ronny Widjaja (Indonesia; “Ronny, congratulations with your title. I remember our greetings and chats during the whole tournament.”)
• Aussi Gareth Owen (“gartek, thanks for the 2 beautiful days @ Imperial Lake View and the final day @ Black Mountain.”)
• Edith Retera (Dutch woman playing for Switzerland; “Very nice meeting you and dining with you.”)
• Fanatic Sandra Brunner (Switzerland)
• Very friendly and charming Susan Cole-Kotas (Nigeria)
• Steady William Criteser (USA) who made lots of bogeys, several birdies but less pars …
• Hans-Günther Löckinger (Austria) for our nice round in Banyan (and we share 1 hobby!)
• Lorenzo Dussoni (Italy) with who I had several chats in the bus
• Utpal Desai (India), who chats more than I do (!) and who was gambling with other golfers all the time
• Lukasz Ostaszewski and all the other Polish friends (and friends from Winston Cheng)
• Swiss Ingo Zurbriggen (Switzerland); we just talked Dutch together (Ingos wife is from Belgium)
• Swiss Rudolf (‘the red nosed’) Thurnheer; we talked @ several moments and we met eachother almost everywhere …
• Joakim Reinius (Sweden) for our nice round the final day @ Black Mountain
• Wantha Decha (Thailand) for our nice round @ Imperial Lake View
• Alex Bocharov (Russia) for our nice round @ Banyan
• Rigo Skara (Germany) for our rounds @ Majestic Creek and the final day @ Black Mountain (“Rigo, you are a very good putter, but you also struggled several times, just as I did.”)

Tour Pro Johan Edfors from Sweden (white shirt) and Marcel Schlimbach

Further I met professional tour player Johan Edfors from Sweden who gave me a signed Black Mountain logo golf ball and golf cap. Johan lives in Thailand, Black Mountain.

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The Thai Golf Perfection

The Thai golf courses we have played are much more perfect then (most; maybe all?!) golf courses in the Netherlands and Belgium. They deliver a significantly better customer experience 😉 ; and that’s very important and something that is forgotten on most Dutch and Belgian golf courses. Okay, of course the costs of labour and the cost price of golf details are very different in Thailand, but it is too easy to blame it all on costs. Friendliness, curstomer orientation and real customer service don’t cost that much!

Beautiful Golf Details:

• Fountains
• Waterfalls
• Running water with stone masonry bridge (to walk on by foot 🙂 )
• Perfect (and strategic) water hazards
• Stone walls around water hazards
• Huge stones
• Several very large bunkers
• Deep (pot) bunkers
• Gently rounded manicured (cutted edges) bunkers with several mini vegetation in the bunkers
• Coconut palm trees and other beautiful trees and bush (areas)

Golf Perfection:

• Entrance with lots of flags
• Luxurious club house: quality restaurants, quality food and drinks (for friendly prices), terrace, very luxurious locker rooms, (always) very friendly people
• Luxurious golf shop
• Your own (friendly) caddie with own golf cart (with cool box and own rake)
• Luxurious Stroke Savers (perfect quality prints)
• Paved paths on the whole golf course
• Hole catering every 3 or 4/5 holes and on the driving range with a bar, terrace and toilets
• Driving range with lots of targets (flags, bunkers), plaque with details, balls in egg racks and luxurious bar
• Practicing from the grass
• Several practice areas (putting and chipping greens, practice bunker)
• WGC: photograpers on hole 1 and on the course
• WGC: microphone and box on hole 1 to announce the players
• Everyday the real distances indidated on the par 3 holes and with the 200-150-100 yards (movable) markers (so that you directly have the exact distances)
• New cup positions on each competition day (with sharp holes)
• White painted cups
• Repairing the divots with sand-seed in a green color
• Caddies preparing your second score card for you as a golf souvenir
• Several seperated (sharp cutted) teeboxes
• Sharp cutted bunker edges
• Holes with names

Recommendations for Dutch and Belgium Golf Courses:

• Friendliness, curstomer orientation and real customer service for more success of their own golf course management (= almost for free!) and for more happy golfers (who will come back and speak positive about this golf course so that other golfers will go to this golf course)
• Give your golfers (customers) what they (really) want and let them feel that they are king
• More pleasing of the golfers and stopping with the negative attitude towards golfers
• More paved paths on the whole golf course; ideal for golf carts and ideal for the walking golfers if the weather isn’t ideal
• Hole Catering at least halfway (maybe even with a vending machine and/or with water supply tanks (as we have seen on BurgGolf Haverleij)
• Everyday the real distances indidated on the par 3 holes and with the 200-150-100 yards (movable) markers (so that you directly have the exact distances)
• Second cut rough (or longer uncutted rough) on the par 3 holes between the teebox and the green (so you have to carrie the golf balls from tee to green and making it impossible to use the low rolling hockey balls); the same on the first part on par 4 and 5 holes
• 4 layers: fairway, 6-foot-wide strip of intermediate rough, first cut of primary rough measuring 1,5 to 2 inches in depth and the second cut of rough measuring 4 to 6 inches in depth) – and so creating more attractive and real golf courses (as they do abroad) and stopping protecting ‘Hockey-golfers’ who hit the low rolling golf balls (just support them to learn to play better golf and to swing through the golf ball)
• Some practice possibilities from real grass
• More practice areas/ranges
• Better practice areas with (more) practice targets, better golf balls, with a vending machine and toilets

Recommendations for (the more serious) golf competitions:

• New cup positions on each competition day (with sharp holes)
• White painted cups
• Photograper on hole 1 and on the course
• Microphone and box on hole 1 to announce the players

Rob van Mastrigt, our South African Stewardess, Marcel Schlimbach

The airliner: Emirates
We flew with Emirates from Amsterdam (Schiphol) to Dubai with a Boeing 777 and from Dubai to Bangkok (very modern Suvarnabhumi Bangkok Airport) with world biggest airliner, the fantastic and comfortable Airbus A380. The return trip we flew from Bangkok to Dubai and from Dubai to Amsterdam with 2 different Boeing 777.

The Emirates service was very good and professional. The Stewardesses were all friendly during all 4 flights (and that’s not in every airliner!). The persona ICE-entertainment-system with the touch screens was perfect. I watched several new movies, some comedy series and 2 beautiful golf films: The Masters 2010 official Film and the US Open 2010 Official Film. Wow!

The 5 golf fly bags

Important for all golfers: with Emirates your golf fly bag flies for free and you also can bring 30 kilos baggage and 7 kilos hand baggage.

Holiday Inn Resort Regent Beach, 1 of the swimming pools

Hotel Lobby

It wasn't that bad at the Beach Bar (Doug Hannaford (Australia) and Rob van Mastrigt

The hotel: Holiday Inn Resort Regent Beach Cha-Am
I like their quote: “Do everything or do nothing, it’s up to you!’ The hotel, only 2 and a half hours drive from Bangkok, is directly located at the beach with white sand at the sunrise side of the Gulf of Siam. The heart of the resort with tropical gardens offers 560 guest rooms, suites and villas. The lobby, the breakfast-restaurants, several dinner-restaurants, are half-open places. The hotel has 2 beautiful swimming pools, own beach, Jacuzzi, tennis and squash courts, fitness centre, and many more.

The food
The food @ the golf courses
The buffet-catering at the golf courses at the Banyan was very good; at Imperial Lake also good. In Black Mountain the golfers could choose 1 of the 5 lunch possibilities. At Majestic Creek there was no kitchen in the club house; so they ordered (too less) food from elsewhere.
Some flights had hole catering at hole 10 at several courses.
The food @ the Holiday Inn Regency Beach hotel
The buffet-catering and buffet-breakfast in our hotel was very good and very much influenced by the English. I personally liked the lots of choices and the good food; especially if you know we were there with 300 people.

René Looijschelder and Rob van Mastrigt @ the Hua Hin party

The food @ the Hua Hin city center market place
The best dinner we’ve had at the Hua Hin night where we were invited by the Thai government and had our open-air buffet-dinner with a lot of typical Thai food. Several organizations and sponsors arranged some typical and/or traditional Thai food. Very very nice and tasteful!

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The country: Thailand (Hua Hin, Cha-Am)
Of course we spent most of the time at the golf courses and the hotel resort but we also went to Hua Hin. I think the places we have visited were reasonably clean. And very important: I always felt save. The Hua Hin part was reasonably busy (taxis, tuk-tuks, market places, shops, etc.) but it was a very nice place for us as tourists. We drank some beers in the bars and had lots of fun.
The Thai people are friendly people and very pleasing; something a bit too pleasing (for example on the golf course where my shoestring was loose and a caddie wanted to snare it; I don’t like that kind of pleasing ;-( ; I can do that myself).
So I am very positive about Thailand, the Thai people and the Thai golf courses. I really can recommend every golfer to visit Thailand and play the Hua Hin golf courses.

I have uploaded more than 200 golf and trip photos, and also 8 videos on YouTube. So please take a look!

Golf regards, fairways and greens, 😉

Marcel Schlimbach
The Netherlands

At Golf, Belgium, handicap 13.0
Business coach/Tax advisor – www.marcelschlimbach.com | marcel@right-1.eu
Mental golf coach – www.par4.eu | marcel@par4.eu
right.1.consultancy

Please visit my internet & social media pages:

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Marcel @ Imperial Lake View

Marcel Schlimbach in action @ Black Mountain Golf