The Els Club Desaru Coast - Ocean Course, Bandar Penawar

Locker room fantastic. Service of staff exceptional. The fairways was poorly maintained- loose soil popping up. Greens was well maintained. Played the Ocean course- layout was boring..not challenging design.

Best locker and staff service in JB. The course design however is underwhelming. Played the Ridge and Ocean courses and frankly holes get predictable very quickly except for maybe 4 good holes. Package came with food and merchandise voucher so that was nice. Terrific warm up range and practice chipping greens. Ridiculously low number of caddies.

Fantastic changing room and service. But the golf course is not worth the distance and fee. Half the price wld be more worth it.

If travelling to Desaru Coast I recommend you book tee times through the Els Club website or through Troon, and don't bother with the website hotel promotion "Stay and Play" if you're playing at the Ocean course. Booking the tee times was not worth the 20% greenfee savings as the person, who works at Els Club (not sure if he works for more than the Ocean course), that handled my tee times was either far to busy with other things to deal with me, or completely incompetent. They said the guy was working and around the first day I was there, but I didn't even want to see his face. After at least 25 emails, even with bulleted questions (he could never answer more than one question per email), and this guy still forgot to arrange my hotel to course transport. I needed to pay my hotel to drive me to the course causing me to tee off 20min late the first day. My hotel transport wasn't expensive and whoever was in charge kindly gave me a 50rm food voucher (which didn't even cover my burger and can of beer, and really just wasted more time I didn't have due to being late teeing off). If I was in charge and a player traveled to play my course had to deal with all of the lack of attention in answering simple questions and still messed up the booking, I would have compensated at least another 20% off of everything just to avoid a bad review. They must get plenty of business, but it didn't seem like it considering they would only give me a food voucher for all the hassle. Both days I was there it was dead aside from me, one other foursome and the various employees. I was the only golfer aside from that foursome that I saw for both of my rounds. All of the staff and course workers were kind, helpful, and I enjoyed talking with them. Unfortunately I didnt have time to hang around the amazing clubhouse, which would have been nice to spend more time, but I ate as I felt I deserved to use the voucher, and left as promptly as they could get me return transport, which was longer than anticipated. I had to make the people travelling with me wait, and I couldn't do as many other things in the area due to schedule conflicts. My long thread of emails mentioned above ended with encouraging words about my return transfer being ready as soon as I was ready to leave. I had to wait the first day, but the second day, without me mentioning the previous wait, they offered to drive me back to my hotel in a car as the transport bus had gone to pick up a group from the ferry (unfortunately there were only two other flights of golfers that day, but hopefully the transport was picking up a large group to bring to their hotel, which Els Club Desaru does offer for people arriving in Desaru by ferry). Hopefully management, and Big Easy care as much as his quote on the wall says, because it seems like the course has potential, but it is a little difficult to travel to for people flying to Kuala Lumpur and coming through Singapore. The ferry still doesn't run frequently enough to provide enough travel options, and isn't arranged by the course staff. A package deal would be appealing to overseas travelers. I hired a driver to transport me from SIN airport in Singapore to Desaru Coast as taking the ferry would have required me to stay another day to catch my fligh, or I wouldn't have able go play golf twice. So, hopefully the area continues to develop, and is more accessible to more people in the future. The course is pretty nice and has many good challenges. In playing all three 9-hole courses I used all 13 of my clubs multiple times except my 5 wood, and all holes are unique from each other. The weather cooperated well for me, and I got to play the course dry one day, and kind of wet the next. Despite there being something left to desire in terms of course conditions (I'm curious if the course is in better condition during the high season), I'd like to come back in the future to play Ocean again, and will try my luck at the Valley course as well.

This course was very nice , I like the view , fairway and specially buggy on course with GPS on the buggy , so you can play easily even no caddy will guide you