Five years ago, after a hiatus of nearly three decades, I began swinging the driver again in Indonesia.
On one of my first times out, the Australian ambassador, Ric Smith, picked me up at 5 on a Saturday morning in Jakarta. "Buy 20 balls, and if you finish with five, you've had a good round," he remarked as we drove south, to give me some sense of the course we'd be playing, Jagorawi.
It wasn't much of an exaggeration. Hacked out of the jungle, the three Jagorawi courses (two 18s, and a nine) are hypnotically peaceful, staggeringly scenic — and maddeningly difficult.
Every time I start a round on Jagorawi's Old Course (built in the early 1970s), I find myself saying, "Ah, how beautiful can it be," as I look down at the fairway — yes, down, because it is some 30m lower than the tee, then gradually runs uphill more than 500 yards, and is lined on both sides with Norfolk pines and mahogany trees. Then I begin to worry whether my drive will clear the gulley and the flower bed to reach that fairway, and not stray into the trees.
There is no rough at Jagorawi. That may sound wonderful, but if you're not in the fairway, you're in the jungle, or river, or ravine, and village boys scramble after the balls, with an uncanny ability to find them — developed over the years and passed on to younger brothers — and then sell them back to you. Jagorawi golfers say you don't buy balls, you lease them, and more than one friend has sworn quite colorfully never to play this club again.
Think Indonesia and tourism, and the first thing that comes to mind is probably Bali. Think golf holiday, and most people would dream of Scotland or Ireland. But Indonesia harbors one of the best-kept secrets in the world of travel: It is a golfer's paradise.
Within an hour or so of Jakarta, there are more championship golf courses — designed by the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman and Robert Trent Jones Jr. — than probably in any other comparable geographic place on the planet; and the cost of a round is often less than the cost of a caddy at St. Andrews.
Jakarta also boasts of having one of the oldest golf courses in Asia, Rawamangun, also known as the Jakarta Golf Club. It was founded in 1872, and when Suharto ruled Indonesia, which he did with an iron hand for nearly 30 years, this is where he and his cronies played. It is an old-fashioned English-style course, short (you'll rarely use a driver) and tree-lined.
After playing five days of golf with me in Indonesia recently, an Australian friend, Tony Sernack, declared, "It's better than going to Sydney." That's quite a testimonial, given that Tony, a management consultant-cum-accomplished photographer, is a former chairman of greens at the New South Wales Club in Sydney, which has been ranked as one of the top 50 golf courses in the world; he twice played there with Bill Clinton. (He could dine out for a long time on the stories he has of those rounds.)
I took Tony first to the New Course at Jagorawi. I bogeyed No. 11, a par 5. On No. 12, I thought, well this should be an easy par — only 153 yards. But you have to hit the green, and hold it — too short, and you're in the ravine or the steep bunkers in front; too long and you're in another bunker, or the river behind.
Then came No. 13. Every time, I vow not to think about the ravine just ahead, which requires a drive of over 150 yards to clear. And the fairway quickly narrows, with jungle on the left and right. I usually don't succeed in hitting the fairway, and thus make another donation to the village boys (they got two from me that day).
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