Riverdale

Riverdale

This Golf Club is one of a few excellent golf courses in Bangkok. The design is like that of Red Mountain, Phuket which has the same designers. The designers make good use of intelligent routing and elevation changes. At first glance Riverdale may not look the most menacing test of golf. Be prepared it is all just an illusion. 

The original landscape included several large lakes, that were dredged to create the hills that surround the golf course and frame most of the holes. Outside of the Course, there is not much to look at; factories and small villages dominate. From opening tee-shot to the gently sloping downhill first fairway, the challenges and considerable charm of these immaculately groomed links, make you forget about the surroundings.

Apart from its excellent conditioning and numerous challenges, the real joy of Riverdale  lies in its beautiful interplay of gently rolling fairways, many small reed-lined lakes, raised greens, excellent bunkering, and large hills that break-up some of the layout's inherent openness.

After negotiating many immaculate, subtly breaking greens and hopefully coming through the 18 holes with scorecard relatively intact, enjoy cool refreshments at the contemporarily styled clubhouse which overlooks the 10th and 18th holes. Elegant locker rooms provide for excellent changing facilities characteristic of a 5-star private members golf club.

 Ask to play the back nine first. Then, play the best three holes towards the end of the round. The signature par-5 6th hole requires two near perfect shots to get on in regulation. The dogleg par-4 7th is a drivable hole.  The twin-green par-3 8th includes a water-protected island or postage-stamp with pot bunker.  A good game may already get a bit of a mauling here. If not, save some strength for these three greats ‘finishing’ holes to end the round on a high note.