Beach Special Langkawi & Penang

Gunung Raya Golf Resort located at the foothills of the majestic Gunung Celebration Mountain. The Max Wexler designed Langkawi golf course covers 300 acres of former rubber plantation land. Gunung Raya has beautiful panoramic views and an impressive landscape. The Langkawi golf course opened for play in 1998 and hosted key amateur golf tournaments over the years.

Constant renovation keeps the course in good order, and almost everywhere there are signs of on-going maintenance. Even the golf cart path lined yellow trumpet flowers and wild grasses. Most of the Gunung Raya holes offer a scenic view of rolling hills and distant mountains. For example, the first hole from its elevated tee is a slight dogleg right with a great view of Gunung Raya and the whole golf course.

The fairways are wide, which makes it easy to keep the ball in play. Bermuda grass ensures balls sit nicely. There’s not much OB or hazards. The back nine has more water.

Some of the most notable holes include the 10th, a 500 meter par-5. The dogleg right hole has water running the entire length on the left while a hill serves as an obstacle to choose the tiger line towards the right. Littered with bunkers the fairway leads to a large, relatively flat green.

Hole 7 is a 207 meter par-3. Watch out for wind conditions and pin position for a good score on this long par three. The bunkers flanking the green, and the two-tiered layout can pose problems to high handicappers. The challenging closing hole, a long 423 meter par-4, is tough to hit on regulation because of its uphill design while two bunkers side by side on the right can add to the strokes. The elevated green calls for a lofted shot to seek the pin.

The clubhouse and practice facilities are adequate for the visiting Langkawi golfer. Overall Gunung Raya Golf Resort is a beautiful course to play in combination with other Langkawi golf courses. It won’t win any awards but makes for a good day out.

Set against the backdrop of Langkawi’s mystical rainforest and the shimmering Andaman Sea, The Els Club Teluk Datai is a true golfing paradise designed by the legendary Ernie Els. Consistently ranked among Asia’s most scenic and prestigious golf courses, it offers a world-class layout that blends seamlessly with its natural surroundings. The course winds gracefully through centuries-old trees, streams, and coastal vistas, ensuring every round is as breathtaking as it is challenging.

Bukit Jawi Golf Resort on Peninsula Malaysia is about a 45 minutes’ drive from Penang International Airport. The 36-hole Penang golf resort is set in a lush tropical landscape and was built on a former hilly oil palm plantation and around large bodies of contoured lakes. Bukit Jawi is 20 kilometers from Penang Island and consistently ranks among the 20 best golf resorts in Malaysia.

Bukit Jawi is a scenic course and the surrounding countryside from almost every tee. Laid out on pleasantly and continually undulating terrain, Bukit Jawi boasts two excellent, challenging and very absorbing championship layouts. The Hill Course and Lake Course offer golfers of varying handicaps a challenging and rewarding experience through with carefully landscaped greens and strategically placed hazards. The fairways and tee boxes grassed with Japanese Zoysia and the putting surfaces turfed with fast-rolling Bermuda grass.

The longer Hill Course, at 6,385 meters, is an 18-hole par-72 championship course. The course’s long and undulating fairways coupled with strategically placed hazards present a challenge to every aspect of the golfer’s game from stroke accuracy and distance to course management. The Hill Course will encourage big-hitters with its usually good-width fairways, even if six or seven of them require blind, uphill drives from the tee. Good bunkering and a line of palms and other tree varieties, ensure every fairway benefits from the definition.

Among many memorable holes, the excellent downhill par-3 12th is seriously defended by a small lake in front of the green. The long par-3 16th, heading in the opposite direction, also utilizes the same lake. Elevation changes and substantive greenside bunkering are more significant factors here than water hazards, although the 9th and 18th holes have threatening water hazards are crossing the fairways, both warranting a clear strategy from tee-to-green.

If you've navigated your way around the course and putt well on its often elevated greens, prepare yourself for a severe putting challenge at the seemingly innocuous par-4 17th. Your approach shot should factor in a putting surface that shelves steeply from right to left. The green that's seen several top golfers struggling to get down in four or more, the 'victims' claiming it is too sloping and too unfair! This course is a real test of skills to even the most seasoned golfer.

As its name suggests, the Lake Course features more water hazards and sand bunkers. The signature 15th island green is surrounded by water and guarded by bunkers at the most strategic place. This course puts a premium on the golfer’s accuracy and short game.

The Lake Course is also an 18-hole par-72 track covering 6,163 meters. The Lake Course will challenge your shot-making and course management in equal measure, while also serving up many of Bukit Jawi's most visually impressive holes. With plenty of elevation changes, water menacingly present on over half the course and a few sharp dog-legs to negotiate, accuracy rather than length is often at a premium here.

Located near the airport on once a 130-acre hilly rugged and rocky jungle, the Penang Golf Club (former Bukit Jambul Country Club) has established itself as one of Malaysia's top golf clubs right from the opening in 1984.  Thereafter, course upgrades and renovations have enabled Penang Golf Club to keep its leadership position among Penang golf courses. In fact, Penang Golf Club was the venue for the 31st Malaysian Open in 1992 which was won by Vijay Singh. That same year the Penang golf club was rated at the 6th best in Malaysia and since then many other events and professional golfers have graced the Penang Golf Club fairways.

Penang Golf Club provides a stunning panoramic view of the island, with the impressive Penang Bridge and mainland Malaysia in the distance.  Villas, apartment blocks and the huge Equatorial Hotel provide most of the backdrop to this very tight and often dramatically undulating, parkland golf course. Although surrounded by the sights and sounds of the city, there are also enough jungle clad hills around to remind you that Penang Island is lush and tropical, much favored by holiday-makers and beach-goers.

The 18 hole 5,763 meter, par-72 golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and is fairly compact. Around the often smallish greens, Trent Jones has chosen to 'hide' many of the bunkers, giving them grassy faces that blend into the fairways and semi-rough.

The Penang Golf Club layout favors accuracy instead of distance off the tee. The sharply doglegging, dramatically downhill opening par-4, provides a clear signal of the tightness of things to come, while also highlighting the excellent presentation and maintenance standards you'll find here. By the time you reach the super-tight par-4 4th, you'll either have the measure of the course, or it will have the measure of you.

Providing you are happy to be challenged and tested on a relatively technical layout where accurate shot-making is paramount, then this course will quickly grow on you, and reward you with many attractively designed holes and interesting views. The long par-3 8th provides one of several testing tee shots. The sharply descending par-4 10th signature hole is perhaps the most dramatic plunge you and your ball will have to make, as the tee is perched 100 feet above the fairway on the valley floor.

Penang Golf Club may feel a bit tight and constraining at times, but its undulating terrain and unusual mix of jungle and city views make this a thoroughly enjoyable and very attractive course.  Close by hotels, restaurants, and shops make this also one of the most convenient Penang golf courses for the Malaysia golf visitor.