Let’s just get this out of the way…Mount Malarayat Golf and Country Club is one of the most beautiful and engaging golf courses in the country. Full stop. Check into the hotel, walk out on the veranda where the golf course and the Malarayat mountain range in the distance paint one of the most beautiful vistas in local golf and listen to your jaw hit the floor with a thud.
It is knock-your-socks-off beautiful.
Beyond the stunning good looks, Malarayat is a hoot to play. With 27 wonderful holes of golf at your disposal, it’s the perfect place to spend a day out of the city and totally immerse yourself in the game. Even better, stay the night and do it all again the next day before heading back to the city.
What is it that makes Mount Malarayat Golf and Country Club so special?
Nestled at the foot of the Batangas mountain range for which it is named, Mount Malarayat is 1,200 feet above sea level, the weather is appreciably cooler than lower locales. Laid out by Bob Moore of JMP Design Group, the three nines are named after peaks in the Malarayat range—Mount Makulot, Mount Lobo and Mount Malipunyo. Interestingly, the first tees of each of the nines orient you directly at the mountain for which the nine is named.
The club has a small hotel just adjacent to the clubhouse with additional lodging available at the Suites of Malarayat, a short walk away from the golf clubhouse. The rooms have all been refurbished and add to the experience of golf here.
The driving range and practice area are among the best in the country. It’s so easy to spend the whole afternoon here working on your game. The setting is truly idyllic.
The golf course is relatively short, playing from the blue tees, whichever combination of nines you choose to play, the course you’ll be playing will come out to about 6,400 yards, which is well within the abilities of most golfers. There are a couple of holes that will test those challenged for length from the tee, what fun would the course be without them.
On paper, Mount Malarayat seems like the sort of golf course on which you can bomb it off the tee and make it up as you get close to the green, but this approach is fraught with danger. The course may be short but the rough is long and sticky, which adds a lot of difficulty to the recovery shot. Then you must deal with the greens.
The few that don’t appreciate Mount Malarayat take issue with the greens. Some appear to be three of four small greens mated together to form a small green complex. Others have deep valleys in the center of the green putting a premium on the accuracy of the approach. Critics complain that the greens are too tricked up, but they are part of the charm of playing here. If you strike the ball well, you will be rewarded. There’s a lot of satisfaction to playing well here.
Each of the nines has its own unique character. The Lobo nine is the shortest of the three but offers you some very interesting shots off the tee. The first hole sets the tone for the course. Longer hitters can drive the ball over the cross bunker that guards the dogleg to leave a wedge into the elevated green. You can avoid the bunker by playing out to the left but that will leave you with a significantly longer approach shot.
The seventh hole on the Lobo nine is a driveable par four. It’s a fun hole with a very difficult, multi-tiered green. There are so many ways to play it; length alone doesn’t guarantee a good score. Get it wrong and you could be faced with an impossible up-and-down.
The closing hole of the Lobo is a favorite of both patrons and guests alike. It’s a beautiful, double dogleg, reachable par five. Take your tee shot over the bunker guarding the dogleg and you could be left with less than 200 yards over water to the elevated, undulating green. It’s an exhilarating hole to play.
The Malipunyo nine is the Goldilocks of the three, it isn’t too long or too difficult; it’s just right. That doesn’t mean that it’s the poor stepchild of the three—nothing could be further from the truth. It may lack some of the flamboyance of the other two nines, but there are some very interesting holes on this side.
The first hole on Mount Malipunyo is almost surreal in the early-morning light, the humps and hollows of the fairway recalling a links course in Scotland. Number 3 on Mount Malipunyo is a strong par-4 featuring a split fairway offering two approaches to the pin.
The three closing holes define the Mount Malipunyo nine. Seven is a classic risk-reward hole requiring the golfer to drive the three bunkers on the right for the optimum approach to the green. Eight is a narrow undulating par 5. The tee shot must hug the left side to provide the preferred line of play. Nine is another strong par 4, 450 from the tips winding around the lake on the right with the green adjacent to the closing hole on the Lobo course.
The Makulot nine is the most difficult of the three; the greens are the most severe and each shot here matters. You need to plot your way around this nine more than the others, but you are rewarded by some of the most beautiful holes on the property.
The closing three holes are stunning. Seven is possibly the most beautiful hole of golf in the country. Once named to Golf Magazines’ 100 most beautiful holes of golf outside of the United States, it is Mount Malarayat’s signature hole. Drive the cross bunkers and you have an outside chance of reaching the green in two. Fail, and you send your golf ball to a watery grave.
Eight is a glorious par 3 that plays downhill over water. The green is divided into three distinct sections and thus puts a premium on the approach shot. The closing hole is one of the most difficult on the nine. Water is in play off the tee and on the approach shot, so there’s a lot of pressure to find the correct part of the fairway to give you as easy a shot into the green as possible. The best time to play the ninth on the Makulot Course is in the late afternoon; watching your second shot arc towards the green with the Malarayat range in the background is one of the truly amazing sights in Philippine golf.
Earlier this year, Mount Malarayat celebrated a milestone, its 20th anniversary. The club celebrated in part by re-sodding the greens. The variety the club chose is called Sunday ultradwarf Bermuda; a variety that was developed in Florida, one of the few US states where the weather is similar to that in the Philippines. Sunday putts like an ultra-dwarf bermudagrass, manages like a dwarf bermudagrass, and feels like a bentgrass. With a massive root system, Sunday offers excellent durability and can be mowed as low as .100 inches. This ultra-dwarf has an exceptionally fine texture, uniform grain and consistent surface for smooth ball roll.
The club has completed the transformation of the greens on the Makulot and Malipunyo nines while the greens on the Lobo course remain a work in progress. The Lobo nine should be playable well before the end of the year, so we’re already planning another trip back.
In our estimation, Mount Malarayat Golf and Country Club occupies the highest echelon of Philippine golf. It might not be the strongest golf course in the country when evaluated by the metrics that we use to rate golf courses, but it certainly has one of the very best golf experiences in the Philippines today.
It is one of our favorite golf courses in the country today.