Morning Golf

We woke up early this morning (5am). Due to this country not recognizing daylight savings time, the sun shone in the room very early. We decided to be the first off the tee in the morning. We were the first group off, nobody in front or behind the entire round.

This is a picture of daybreak. Photo does not do this sunrise over the mountains justice....


This is the first hole. TIGHT like the entire course. Imagine being hung-over, no practice balls and looking down this shute of this first hole. The course is long too. The weather is HOT even though the sun is not fully up yet. The humidity is very high and after the first swing we are dripping sweat. Very difficult to hold the club. We are 10 degrees north latitude, and, Ali, it just like Singapore. You walk outside and sweat.
This is a view from a bridge over a rushing river. The drainage is intense as the rain comes down from the mountains. In the distance that is a barrier island/mountain creating the bay. The water is bright blue which you unfortunatly cannot see in this picture. There are rattlesnakes and croc's in the waters. Here is Todd taking his 8th shot on this par 5. The ground is sooo wet that it is cart path only and you don't get too much roll - if any. Greens are slow too. Those are condo's built into the side of the hill/mountain/forrest. Some of the employees on the trip are staying in those (Todd has not acheived "baller status" in this company to get that level of room yet). When you stay in the condo's you have your own private pool and they provide you a golf cart to use all week long to commute to and from the hotel areas.

Here is another view from #17. Again the pic does not do much justice, however, this is a similar shot as a picture above...

Here is another long par 4 (only because you don't get any roll) and you get an idea of how tight 80% of the holes on this course are...

This is an early picture of the sunrise over the mountains. Tough to see, however, it is very nice. The hundreds of exotic birds yell at you throughout the round. We even saw a lemur or monkey (too far away to take a picture or see exactly what it was). It was 4 legged animal running across the fairway we had just vacated.

In my next post I'll post a pic of the scorecard - ran out of space to add it on this post. Todd - 104. Todd left the course saying, "I'll happilly take that 104 on this course." I shot - 86 (44-42). Solid round for me despite the wet conditions. Long morning for Todd who went through 10+ balls straying from the tee. If/when you stray from the fairway the rough litterally "eats your ball" and it is usually difficult to find.

Even though we rode in a cart, I probably lost 10 lbs of sweating this morning.

We're planning to play again tomorrow morning which should make the course a bit easier since we'll know where we're going. Many of the greens are not visible from the tee here - making it hard for a first time player.