Of course Hawaii is great, but Barack Obama's other home, Indonesia, has good golf too

The Hawaii CVB has to be giddy at all of the free publicity they’ve received this past week thanks to President-elect/global phenomenon/shirtless heart throb Barack Obama’s vacation spent on Oahu’s beaches and golf courses.

I would wager there will be a Barack Obama Oahu Golf Trail any day now, pairing his most frequented golf clubs and some sight-seeing around his former neighborhood. That train is never late…

Most of Obama’s constituents are fully aware Hawaii is a can’t-miss, often once-in-a-lifetime vacation. I don’t think I’ve ever had a friend or colleague of mine - golfer, surfer, hiker, boozer - come back from Hawaii without an ear-to-ear grin, a flash drive full of post card photographs and a noggin full of stories.

And if I’m lucky, they bring me back some delicious Kauai coffee, too.

But before Barack became Hawaii’s favorite son, he lived abroad, across the South Pacific in Indonesia. And the golf there (over 100 courses total) is supposedly pretty good too, albeit well off the radar of most golfers - at least in the western hemisphere.

I honestly didn’t even know Indonesia had much golf until I was in nearby Malaysia last month. My tour bus included eight tour operators from Indonesia. Between snacking on fried bananas and whacking the ball around, many of them told me the same thing: Indonesian golf is cheaper and better than the golf in Thailand and Malaysia.

Home bias or not (did I mention northern Michigan is the world’s best golf destination?), their cases were convincing. Big-name designers have laid some tracks here like Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Perhaps the most notable course is Ria Bintan resort’s Ocean Course by Player, described in my Planet Golf book by Darius Oliver as “pristine, peaceful and unhurried…easily the best kept and constructed of the island’s courses.”

And according to IndoGolf.com, on the exotic island of Bali, “one can indulge in a rich men’s lifestyle, be it on a shoestring budget or backed by a healthy bank account back home.”

Bali has four golf courses, three of which next to the sea.

The Indonesians also told me their courses are also kept in superior condition to anywhere else in Asia, largely because of the extremely low cost of labor. Courses in Indonesia have up to 100 or so groundskeepers on the golf courses every day, so nary a blade is out of place. Also, the caddies are dirt cheap and outstanding. “You never touch your ball if you don’t want to,” they say. The caddie (usually female) will tee the ball up for you, take it out of the hole, and fish it out of monkey-infested jungle.

I never thought handling your golf ball was objectionable, but it’s nice to know you don’t have to if you’re some kind of sphere-o-phobe.

I’m also told that unlike a lot of countries throughout the world these days, from Morocco to Germany, Indonesia isn’t keen on using golf as a vehicle for business and tourism quite yet. So for now, information about Indonesian golf is pretty hard to find. Nearby nations like Malaysia, China, Viet Nam and Thailand are all far more developed when it comes to their international golf tourism and it’s easy to find a golf package, usually with a native guide to take you around.

That said, I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground, hoping to land an Indonesian golf trip sometime soon.

But if I’m Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism, surely I am noticing the thousands of Hawaii articles being generated by Barack Obama’s vacation. Indonesia’s president should invite Obama back to his former home for some diplomatic chats and a few rounds of golf, and watch the coverage take off.

At least there’s a better chance Obama would accept this golf trip invitation compared to his two daughters adopting Peru’s precious (toothless, hairless) little housewarming gift for the White House.