Last Saturday, we continue the Gemblung Golfers tradition to have at least New Year or Year End golf.

This time around, we picked Sedayu Indo Golf. A recently opened golf course in Pantai Indah Kapuk 2, which is built on reclaimed land.

The golf course is designed as link style – taking cue from traditional golf courses in UK. No trees, lots of bushes, has many bunkers, but offer gorgeous view of the beaches alongside. The fairway and green are also in great condition, with course management allowing cart to go inside the fairway is a plus. Although the challenge lies on the course itself: narrow fairways and tricky bunker and pond locations.

In addition, as it’s literally by the ocean, the wind is quite strong and the humidity is high. When the sun shines it really demand a lot more physical effort than playing in other courses.

Luckily we played in almost perfect condition. Taking the afternoon tee time did help too. The sun hid in the clouds, and the breeze was cool enough to lit up the mood.

But hey, whatever the condition, playing with your best golf buddies after 1 year were nothing but fun. Especially when our team kept the tradition of winning the Two-Ball competition.

It was actually started not too smooth for my team (me and Richard). Richard flew his ball out of bounds on the first tee shot. While I managed to land it safely on fairway, but I pulled my approach and went to green side bunker. We lost the hole 0-1.

The second hole didn’t go well for us either. Richard was still struggling on his game, while Anung had perfect tee shot and approach, and made par on second hole. I could only score bogey. And just like that we trailed by 2.

But luck favored us. As we were still finding our rhythm, Richard miraculously holed in his 4th shoot (a pitch from side of the green). Cue the club throw (see picture on Hole 3). Unexpectedly, we came back within 1.

Buoyed by that lucky break, Richard found his game and made par on Hole 4. I followed the momentum by scoring my own pars on Hole 5 and 6, which turned the game around to 4-2 in our favor.

To be fair, Agung and Anung did not back down. They fought back and managed to level the score by the turn. It was exactly the same score when we had our Two-Ball duel few years ago in Sentul Highland.

But after the turn – there’s no turning back for me and Richard. We rode our luck and created shots after shots that push Agung and Anung to the rope. Anung could have levelled the score in Hole 12, but lucky for us, he missed the short par putt. That moment, followed with my easy birdie on Hole 13 put the nail into their coffin. We finally won the tie 4 & 2 on Hole 16 (8-4 overall score).

But again this is not about our win or their loss. It’s about the brotherhood and friendship we had for more than 20 years. Such a joy to return to golf course and play the game we all love. See you again in next game!