The end of the good year 2017 is upon us and as is our custom, it is time to look back on the year that was and how the golf courses of the country fared.
Ranking the golf courses in the country is difficult since they are so different. You have quaint layouts in historical settings, converted sugarcane haciendas, mountaintop resorts and tracks that play by the ocean. Such diversity is a boon to the golfer for it gives us almost unlimited variety; enough to sustain a life-long passion in the game and offer a unique experience for golfing tourists from other lands.
But it is this very diversity that poses headaches for journos that put together lists such as this. How do you rank one course against the other? How is it possible to compare a grand old golf course such as Luisita Golf and Country Club with, say, the Masters course at Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club?
As before, we continue to use Golf Digest magazine’s criteria to rank the golf courses but also as before, we continue to struggle to compare the newer golf courses with those of older construction. Because conditioning of the golf course is a key criterion, golf courses constructed before the advent of all-weather course construction are at a severe disadvantage and cannot hope to compete with the golf courses constructed in the 1990s and beyond.
But this seems patently unfair since some of the older golf courses provide the best golf experience in the country. So, we’ve modified the criteria a bit to make allowances for this by recognizing the best of both eras—the best modern golf course and the best traditional golf course. We are further expanding our rankings by now rewarding the best golfing experience, which takes into account other qualities of the club besides the golf. These include food and beverage, service, the ambiance of the club and other factors that affect the golfers’ enjoyment at the golf course.
We feel that these additions are important to properly recognize the clubs that may not have the most challenging golf courses but offer much more to the golfer beyond golf. It is often these intangibles that most affect a golfer’s time at the club and add to his enjoyment at the golf course.
Let’s have a look at this year’s contenders.
The traditional golf courses Calatagan Golf Club
The Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed course is one of his best works in the country. It was voted venue of the year by the pros on the Philippine Golf Tour the first year the Tour made its way to Calatagan. If you told me that I could only play one golf course for the rest of my life, Calatagan wouldn’t be a bad choice. Set well within the sprawling Zobel estate of Hacienda Biga-a, Calatagan Golf Club is a good five-minute drive from the main road on a part of the property closer to Balayan Bay. The road in is lined with kalachuchi (Plumeria) trees that erupt into bloom in late April through May, calling to mind the true meaning of the phrase, Flores de Mayo.
Calatagan is short but don’t let that fool you. It’s enough of a golf course to challenge golfers of all abilities. The fairways wind up and down the hillside. The fairways are lined with hundreds of trees; it feels as if it was carved out of the rain forest. Those same trees will serve to penalize you, often severely, if you stray from Calatagan’s well-groomed fairways. The greens are small but fair; they will reward a well-struck shot and will punish a poor one. They’re not that easy to putt either. Local knowledge is essential to unravelling their secrets.
Although the golf course is quite forgiving, there is a way to play it to give you the maximum result on each hole. This means shaping your shots to suit the contour of the hole. It is the ultimate test of the more accomplished golfer. Unlike other courses, Calatagan does not favor one shot shape over the other; you will find the need to both draw and fade the ball for optimum position on the winding fairways. This is a rarity and alone is worth the drive from Makati City. It is less noticeable on the front nine but there’s no getting around it on the back.
This is one of the most beautiful golf courses in the country and an absolute delight to play. If feels as if you’re playing in someone’s very impressive garden. I have yet to find another golf course that rewards your game with this feeling. It’s the intangibles that keep us coming back to Calatagan.
Cebu Country Club
Smack in the middle of Cebu City in Banilad sits the scenic Cebu Country Club. The club traces its beginnings to the early-1900s as a nine-hole golf course built by British and American executives. Today, almost a century later, it has blossomed into the premier course in the Visayas.
The course is flat but is no pushover. The fairways are defined by mature tree lines, mounding and water; lots of it, making the course play much harder than it reads on the card. Its main defenses are its greens.
The greens are small, so you will miss a few of them. This puts a premium on your short game. The greens are planted with native zoysia, which is inherently grainy. This makes them almost unreadable if you’re playing the course for the first time.
The fairways are wide for the most part, allowing you to take driver and swing away. You’ll need to get as much distance off the tee as you can to give yourself a shorter approach shot to deal with. Just make sure you don’t drive it in the water, which they have in abundance here.
Water is in play on 11 of the 18 holes. A recent redesign changed two holes, the fifth and sixth, substantially. Five is totally different; different tee, different green and the tee shot now carries a water hazard. The club added substantial length to No. 6, the tee box back and angling it over what used to be the fifth green. The difficult green will then be pushed further to the right of the golfer, bringing the bunker on the left side of the fairway into play. The changes have significantly increased the difficulty of the two holes. No. 6 is now the handicap one.
Three is a gorgeous little par 3 with the green fronted by a pond with a couple of trees growing out of it. It’s also home to the club’s resident ducks and pigeons that are unafraid of humans and will waddle right up to you looking for a handout. Eight is a proper par 4; most will need a fairway wood or hybrid to reach the green even after a good tee shot. The par 5s are the most aesthetically pleasing; two, seven, 11 and 16 are all beauties and offer real scoring opportunities to those that safely navigate their fairways. Eighteen is a tough finishing hole; there’s OB right and the hole doglegs around it. Bunkers guard the corner waiting for those that take too safe a line off the tee.
This short but tough golf course has also produced a number of great champions. The legendary “Bantam” Ben Arda honed his game on these very fairways and former Philippine Open champion Rudy Lavares, who holds the four-day scoring record of the event, also calls Cebu Country Club home. He was best known for leading the Philippines to a second-place finish in the World Cup in 1977, when he finished as runner-up to Gary Player in individual play. He was the Order of Merit leader in the local tour in the early-1990s and played the Old Course at St. Andrews in the Dunhill Cup as the representative of the Philippines.
Cebu Country Club is the queen of the golf courses in the Visayas.
Canlubang Golf and Country Club North Course
The North Course is the longer of the two and for my money, the more difficult. At right around 7,200 yards from the tips (depending on the placement of the tees), it features deceptively wide fairways and substantial greens whose subtle breaks confound golfers to this day. The course flows gently across the rolling terrain and uses the land’s natural hazards and features to defend par. It will test your length of the tee and your shotmaking skills so come prepared to do battle.
The dominant features on both courses at Canlubang are the deep, lushly vegetated ravines formed by the Balibay River. Both courses at Cangolf were built on an unprecedented scale, one that is never going to be repeated in this country ever again. That alone carries the North Course into this evaluation.
The design of the North Course is breathtaking. It may not be as aesthetically pleasing as the South Course but it makes up for that in spades when it comes to the demands it makes on the golfer.
The fourth hole is a stunning par 3 that calls for a long iron shot across a yawning ravine. Five is a short dogleg par 4 whose main defense is a slick two-tiered green guarded by bunkers in front and a water hazard to the left. Then another spectacular par 3 with water separating tee from green. Though danger lurks on every hole, special care must be taken with the par 3s; the potential of recording a big number is present on each of them.
The last two holes are severe tests; 17 is a monster of a par 5 with a watery ditch bisecting the fairway that complicates placement of the second shot. The green is one of the smaller ones on the course and an elusive target for the long hitters trying to find it in two. Eighteen seems straight forward, but get on the wrong side of the pin and it’s sure to ruin your round.
The huge double green shared by the closing holes on each nine is an icon of Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s work and has become the inspiration for his golf courses in the country. The North Course is the daddy of them all. There are few locations that offer a finer day of golf than Canlubang. The magnificent location and terrain, the unobtrusive design and two golf courses that will test every golfer’s mettle are the gems of Philippine golf.
Again, the age of the golf course shows here and hurts it in this exercise. The greens are excessively grainy and turf quality can be uneven in the hottest months. This is an impressive property and one that will light a fire under the most jaded golfer.
Del Monte Golf Club
Located on the massive plateau that is Bukidnon, the Del Monte Golf Course is owned and operated by the company as an amenity for their executives and employees. The original nine holes (now the back nine) were built in 1928 around the huge, 5-hectare Cawayanon Lake. The front nine was designed and built by Pinoy golfing great Celestino Tugot on the slopes that surrounded the original nine. The course is 35 kilometers southeast of Cagayan de Oro, about a 45-minute ride on the Sayre National Highway. The temperate weather and huge trees that populate the course guarantee the ideal climate for golf.
The front nine is the more challenging of the two; the slopes conspire to kick your ball into the mature trees that stand four and five deep along the fairways, effectively putting the brakes on any heroics out of the tree line. I particularly like the stretch of holes five through eight. Five is a 424-yard par 4 at the low end of the property. A canal that crosses the tee and meanders up the left side of the fairway to the small lake beside the green is the hole’s principal defense. Six is the prettiest hole on the front, a 534-yard par 5, the tee shot is over a small lake to a fairway that doglegs gently uphill and to the left.
On the inward nine, holes 11 through 13 are most memorable. At 408 yards, the par-4 11th is a tough driving hole; the tee shot must be precisely placed on the right center of the fairway to clear the dogleg for the approach. Twelve is one of the most dramatic holes on the course, 180 of the 3-par’s 205 yards is over water. Thirteen is the toughest hole on the back; a 436-yard par 4 with bunkers that guard the landing areas off the tees and short and along the sides of the green. The 165-yard 16th is Del Monte’s most famous hole. Nicknamed Warnes’s hole after Del Monte executive Thomas Warnes who, in 1938, put 36 balls (you got that right!) into the lake.
Del Monte tops the other Mindanao golf courses because of aesthetics and conditioning. Of the traditional layouts on the vast island, it stands out against the rest.
Luisita Golf and Country Club
Luisita was one of the pioneers of the modern parkland design. It is a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design; the only one in Asia. Courses at the time had small greens that were elevated and tilted to one side or other to facilitate drainage. Think about Wack Wack’s East Course, which was completed about a decade before. Luisita’s greens, by comparison, are more generous than any other golf course constructed in the country at that time. The bunkering was unique as well, and has more in common with today’s golf courses than those built in the same period.
Then there’s the length of the golf course. At 7,042 yards from the black tees, Luisita Golf and Country Club comes in at the minimum standard for a championship golf course these days, but remember this course was completed in the 1960s, when golfers then played tiny blades and woods made out of, well, wood. Translated into the modern idiom, Luisita probably played like it was 7,400 yards back then.
The element that golfers will have to deal with is water. There’s water almost everywhere; it’s in play on 11 of the 18 holes and you’ll have to deal with it on all the par 3s. On two of the holes (14 and 17), there are two water hazards with which to contend. So unless you’re out to challenge yourself, most golfers would do well to play the correct set of tees. It will add enjoyment to your round and lessen the number of golf balls you donate to the hazards. The second hole helps drive that home. It’s a 192-yard par 3 (165 yards from the blue tees) with very little between you and the green but water. Unlike its feared sibling (the 17th), there’s nowhere to lay up. You’re going to have to strike the ball well to score here.
There are so many memorable holes here that it’s nigh on impossible to choose a favorite. The par 3s are all drop-dead gorgeous, the second perhaps the most so. The seventh hole is a layup and a wedge if done properly but when the water in the hazard is high, those in the know will skip golf balls across the lake and onto the green.
The ninth is the beast. The 623 yards from the tips makes this a par 5 to be reckoned with. The severely elevated green makes the approach shot very difficult to judge. As this is the 1-handicap hole, bogey is a good score here.
But it is the closing stretch that is the most memorable. Fourteen is a great hole. The tee shot must cross two bodies of water. The hole doglegs to the left and water remains in play with the approach, as well. The green is shallow and difficult to hold. It’s just a great golf hole. But as good as it is, 15 is up there with it. This sweeping dogleg to the left is a bit shorter but no less difficult. An array of bunkers guard the ideal landing area off the tee. A miss to the right will result in a long shot into a green that slopes away in the back.
Then there’s the 17th. With 214 yards from the tips and just 20 yards shorter from the next set of tees, this is the most difficult of the par 3s. There is scant area on which to miss but shorter hitters will be gratified to know that they can lay up to an island where the forward tees are located. The hole is much more manageable from there.
There is so much to love about Luisita. The magnificent clubhouse takes you back to the time of the grand hacienda. It gives you a glimpse back at a genteel time in history and a taste of what it must have been like.
If there’s one thing that’s hurt Luisita in this evaluation, it is the condition of the golf course. That said, its condition has improved markedly with the entry of the Lorenzos and will continue to do so until they restore the golf course to its former glory.
Wack Wack Golf and Country Club East Course
Wack Wack Golf Club’s East Course is the country’s oldest and most storied championship golf course. William J. Shaw was the impetus behind the club’s genesis. Disgusted with the elitism and policy of exclusion displayed at the 1926 Philippine Open when then 16-year-old Larry Montes was refused a seat at the victory dinner because he was a caddie, Shaw determined to build a golf club with the aim of promoting peace and harmony between golfers of all races. Working with a group of golfers from the old Municipal Golf Links, he succeeded and Wack Wack was formed in 1930. The club’s name derived from the squawks of the crows that used to inhabit the land. The following year, Shaw contracted the services of Jim Black, a golf professional from the United States, to oversee the construction of the East Course.
Time has proven the design of the East Course. Though a long-overdue renovation awaits, it is still a course that will challenge, reward and frustrate golfers of all abilities. It is classic construction for courses of the Philippines; Carabao grass with small, elevated, often severely sloped Bermuda greens. This is a course that has hosted the likes of Jackie Burke, Lloyd Mangrum, Billy Casper, Peter Thomson, Norman Von Nida, Slammin’ Sam Snead, Kel Nagle, Bruce Crampton, Ed “Porky” Oliver and the 1997 World Cup of Golf, which was attended by the likes of Gary Player, Hugh Biocchi, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Ignacio Garrido and Seve Ballesteros. The old hands will tell you that even these golfing greats have stumbled at No. 8.
During the last renovation, the East Course underwent a major makeover that had two goals. The first was to lengthen the golf course. The East Course is the home of the Philippine Open so the extra yardage was critical in keeping the course challenging for the new breed of professionals. Some 350 additional yards were found by adding and repositioning some of the tee boxes; most notable are the ones on Nos. 8, 10 and 12.
The extra yardage meant that the fairway bunkers on the golf course needed to be repositioned. In previous years, said bunkers could be easily carried and offered little resistance for most golfers. The subtle changes in position of the bunkers required much consideration and today, if the bunkers don’t quite come into play for the professional, they definitely merit his concern when standing on the tee. Bunkers have been added on 5, 12, 17 and 18 to force players to carry over the hazard; something never a concern in the past.
The other redesign was to improve the old waterways and hazards. Changes were made to the lakes around holes 7 and 16. Changes were made to the rockwork, which now looks very natural. The fruits of their labor are quite noticeable. The course now looks more holistic, aesthetics are significantly improved.
The team also eschewed the use of modern grasses for the new East Course, choosing to stay with carabao grass for the fairways and zoysia for the greens. The greens have not changed much and remain the principal challenge for the golfer. They are part of the history and heritage of the course and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
The course is a beast and holds its own even when compared to the modern courses. The extra length has made the small greens even harder to hit. It is one of the toughest courses in the country. The East Course is an icon of Philippine golf and the club continues to work to keep it that way.
The best modern golf courses Anvaya Cove Golf and Sports Club
If the Ayala Corp. is involved, you know that the product is top class. Such is the case with the Anvaya Cove Golf and Sports Club. Anvaya opened to much fanfare three years ago and boasts one of the best layouts in the country. The course meanders up and down the Zambales coastline, offering some of the most spectacular views in Philippine golf.
The outward or Mountain Nine is situated along the peaks and ridges of the development, giving golfers an elevated view of the sea and the Zambales and Bataan mountain ranges. Meanwhile, inward nine has been labeled the Seaside Nine, since its layout combines panoramic sea views and nature preserves. Even more impressive is that the Ayala Group prioritized the course’s sustainability and harmony with the environment. This was achieved by minimizing earth movement, saving mature trees and landscaping with endemic flora while routing the tees and fairways to give the impression that the golf course has always been there. It always was but it took a great architect and a developer with a vision to uncover.
We had the opportunity to play my first round at Avaya with Ramsey and he impressed on us just how serious the Ayala Group was about the concept. Removal of any tree on the property required much deliberation before action was taken. Zoysia or Philippine Bermuda was chosen for the fairways because it is endemic and thrives naturally in this environment.
The greens previously presented Anvaya’s only liability; they were too new and weren’t playing to the standard set by the other more mature golf courses. Time, of course, has addressed that issue and today, Anvaya’s greens are mature and play as you’d expect of a top golf course. We expect Anvaya to do very well in this year’s rankings.
The best news is that the golf experience was not compromised in the least. The greens are planted with mini verde; a micro-Bermuda hybrid that does well in the Philippine setting. They are fast and roll true and are a pleasure to play. The course has a bit of everything. It is beautiful and challenging all at once. This is a shotmaker’s golf course. You will be asked to employ every shot at your disposal and manage yourself around the extreme variety the course provides. It isn’t overly difficult or penal but it’s no pushover either. Dare I say it? It strikes the almost perfect balance for a golf course.
Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club Masters Course
The Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club was intended to be the consummate golf and leisure experience, an environmentally responsible haven for enjoyment with a world-class reputation for service excellence. Established in September 1990, it was, together with Sta. Elena Golf and Country Club and The Orchard Golf and Country Club, one of the first golf courses that utilized modern all-weather construction techniques to keep the course playable year-round.
Played from the back tees, this is a beast of a golf course with course and slope ratings of 75.8 and 140, respectively; it is not a golf course to trifle with. The holes snake their way through the marshland forcing the golfer to deal with constantly varying wind conditions on almost every hole. The forward tees, though perhaps a bit less formidable, are still quite difficult and require thought and discretion to obtain a good score.
Nicklaus is famous for designing golf courses that test your abilities. You must negotiate that myriad obstacles and booby traps that he’s laid out before you. You must place your ball in the optimum spots to attack the greens. Unfortunately, you will often need to challenge these obstacles to obtain this position. Fail and you will be penalized by additional strokes or poor angles from which to approach the lightning quick greens.
The holes are all beautifully laid out and landscaped, but it is the stretch from nine through 11 that I look forward to the most. They constitute a really tough corner, one the Club often brags about as their version of Amen Corner. Nine is a relatively short par 4; from the forward tees golfers that are long off the tee really don’t need to take driver here. The landing area, although seemingly quite wide, is constricted by a huge bunker left and OB right and you must find the fairway to stay in position to approach the island green.
Ten is the pick of the litter; the most beautiful hole on the golf course in this writer’s humble opinion and one of the toughest. It was voted as one of the 500 best holes of golf in the world by Golf Magazine. Measuring 429 yards from the tips, it plays much longer than that into the teeth of the strong amihan wind. The shallow creek that meanders across the tee boxes and up the left side feeds into a pond fronting the green; this forms the primary defense for the green. Par here will feel like a birdie almost anywhere else. The slightly shorter 11th also plays into the wind and features water all the way up the left side of the fairway and again, in front of the green.
Manila Southwoods lagged slightly behind Sta. Elena in terms of conditioning but thanks to the new Grounds Director John Cope, the Masters Course has blossomed. The greens are every bit the equal of those at its Cabuyao neighbor and the fairways are just slightly better. This is a superb design that takes full advantage of the prevailing wind. The course twists and turns such that the wind comes at you from a different direction on every single hole. It is the cream of the crop.
Sherwood Hills Golf and Country Club
So much of what a golf course is has to do with the piece of land on which it’s built. You can do great things with great land and Sherwood Hills Golf Club sits on one of the best pieces of golfing real estate in the country.
Sherwood Hills Vice Chairman Freddie Campos relates that he brought the Great One, Jack Nicklaus, to the site while he was working on Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club’s twin courses, to show him the property. The original concept for Sherwood Hills was to be 36 holes of golf with each of the nines designed by Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson, the protagonists of the original Skins Game aired on television. After touring the property, Nicklaus turned to Campos and said, “If you let me do the entire property, I’ll cut my fee in half.” What he saw was a natural inland links course just below the surface, beneath the cogon and local scrub that dotted the landscape, waiting to be uncovered; as natural a property for a golf course as can be found on God’s green earth. It was rough but it was there in front of him. It wouldn’t take much to bring the course out either, just some routing and minor shaping.
Nicklaus eschewed the flowering plants preferred by some designers, opting instead for native grasses to maintain the natural feel of the course and, more important, lower maintenance costs. In the course of a round, one is confronted with varied hues and textures of green; patterns created by the bahia, cogon and other native grasses that border the fairways. Ravines line the left side of much of the front nine increasing the degree of difficulty of play there.
The back nine is more scenic and will offer a respite after coming off the harder front. The complex of 10 and 11 winding around one of three lakes on the property is particularly beautiful. The clubhouse is an American Southwest colonial design and is one of the homiest, most inviting places to put your spikes up and enjoy a cold beer. The veranda feels more like a large living room than the club’s restaurant. The 18th green sits just a few yards over the cart path that fronts the veranda; it’s an excellent vantage point to enjoy the golf come tournament time.
Played from the Gold Tees, Sherwood Hills is a formidable track at 7,265 yards and will play even longer when the wind blows. It is ultimately the stiff Cavite breeze that completes the links experience at Sherwood Hills. The course is friendly without it and an absolute beast when it blows. Sherwood’s strengths are its par 4s; eight of them over 400 yards, six of them over 430. Those are extra-large par 4s; playing the appropriate set of tees is crucial to your golfing pleasure. Nicklaus makes up for this by providing par 5s that are reachable in two. They present the best scoring opportunities at Sherwood Hills.
The club’s acquisition by real-estate giant Megaworld and subsequent assignment to Suntrust Properties has been a shot in the arm for the Trece Martirez property. Money is no longer an issue and the course is back to its peak.
Sta. Elena Golf and Country Club Makiling Course
No rankings are complete without Sta. Elena Golf and Country Club. The club has set the standard for the conditioning of their golf course. They are so good at it that they’ve made quite a tidy profit building and maintaining other golf courses to their same exacting standards.
The original design was penned by then RTJ II design staff member Don Knott, who has since moved on and now heads his own firm. Jones and the Tantocos then modified the design substantially, creating more contour and greater elevation changes on the former sugar field. The end result is stunning and has been universally praised. Golfdom’s top brass, Michael Fay of the USGA and Michael Bollanack of the Royal and Ancient have both played Sta. Elena and have nothing but praise for the 27-hole layout. Sta. Elena Golf and Country Club has twice been voted best golf course in the Philippines by Asia Golf Magazine and was runner-up for best golf course in Asia in 2003.
Sta. Elena was intended to be the premier golf course in the country and in an era where players are hitting the golf ball further than ever rendering some tracks obsolete, Sta. Elena will maintain its stature by leaning on its strengths, the par 4s and 5s. It’s funny that Mr. Jones designated the 213-yard par-3 17th the signature hole. Playing Elena, you need to hit the long ball to make par, much less score. Most of these holes are beyond the reach of most bogey golfers. And then there’s the stiff breeze that whistles through Laguna in the afternoons, increasing the effective distances and degree of difficulty of the upwind holes.
The shorter holes present the golfer with numerous options and many hazards. The beautiful 383-yard 11th is a great little par 4, offering a substantial reward for the brave. A dogleg left, the uphill tee shot over a ravine dares golfers to cut the dogleg. If successful, the reward is a wedge or short iron into a very fast green perched on the edge of the hazard. Similarly configured is the 411-yard sixth, which presents you with a downhill tee shot to a fairway that doglegs to the left over a lake that runs the length of the hole.
Where Sta. Elena falls short is design variety. Take the ninth and 18th holes. They are near identical twins. Both tee shots are to an elevated fairway and both fairways slope down to greens that are sloped in very similar fashions. A bit more differentiation between the two would have been preferable.
Also, the layout is beginning to show its age. The club played preferred lies through most of the summer, which is probably the buildup of organic material in the soil which prevents it from draining properly. The solution might be straightforward but expensive. The fairways need to be redone.
Notably absent from this year’s rankings is The Orchard Golf and Country Club’s Palmer Course. The club has had issues with their greens in the past year and that unfortunately drops the club from this year’s exercise. Work is underway to address the problem and considerable progress has been made, albeit not enough to merit their inclusion in this discussion. We are confident that in a year or two, the course will be back at its peak and will once again grace our rankings.
We will reveal our winners in our future issues so don’t miss it.
Image credits: Mike Besa & Marty Ilagan