Metro (Rose Garden) Golf Club

Metro (Rose Garden) Golf Club
Recently sold and renovated, Overall quality is poor

The Rose Garden Golf Club is the one of most oldest and well-known golf courses in Thailand. This Thai-owned and managed golf course was made famous when it hosted the 1992 Thailand Open. Shortly thereafter, it was voted by two international golf magazines as among the best 24th best courses in the world.

The relatively well-maintained golf course meanders amongst mature trees and thick vegetation. In fact, the Rose Garden more than lives up to its name in substance as well as tranquility. In particular from January to April, golfers can enjoy the good views of the many trees and flowers in full bloom around the course.
The course is mostly level, with narrow tree-lined fairways and heavily-bunkered greens. Accurate approach shots are required to score well. From the white tees, the course is relatively short but very pleasant, challenging and will keep your interest in order to get a good score.

The positioning of water around the course not only challenges the keen golfer, but also enhanced the beauty of the course. One unique feature of the Rose Garden Golf Club is that each hole has two greens, one left and one right, which not only ensures good conditions from less frequent play, but also adds to the variety for those golfers playing multiple rounds. The greens are soft and very receptive. There is a lot of variety throughout the round with two excellent par fives to finish.

The par-5 holes are perhaps the highlight of the round, particularly the 11th, where the player must hit to the right from the tee in order to be able to negotiate the left and dog-leg, and an extremely difficult second shot, after which a highly skilled third shot is called for. The 17th a par-5 is a risk-reward challenge that is reachable in two. Staying close to the trees on the left results is the key to set up a chance for a birdie. The left green is the more demanding, as it requires a semi-blind shot over bunkers and contoured mounds for approach to the green.

The Rose Garden Golf Club features a modest, but aging clubhouse. A putting green and driving range are available. There’s nothing fancy about the clubhouse, but it is well maintained and clean with the restaurant serving Thai and Japanese food. On-course refreshment kiosks offer a good selection at reasonable prices, but snacks are very local Thai.

Despite the low prices, the service could be better, caddies are in need of new uniforms, and nowadays it is probably not worth the long ride from Bangkok just to play at Rose Garden. There are 3 star on-site accommodations which are OK for locals overnighting or in-transit, but not recommended for overseas visitors.