There are two prices for a lot of things on Saipan. The advertised price is the tourist price but locals know to ask for the promo or local price. The difference is sometimes quite substantial. For example, the posted price for a round of golf on the spectacular oceanside course at Lao Lao Bay is $180 per person. That includes cart rental. The local price is $40. That’s right, $40! That’s less than 25% of the tourist price!

Since we’re not here as tourists but we aren’t long term residents, we don’t really fit into either category. Some places have happily given us the local rate but when I called to make a tee time at Lao Lao this morning, I was told that we’d only be given the local price if we could produce a Saipan driver’s license as ID. Of course, we don’t have such a thing. In the past, Dave and Helen Ann took their summer volunteers down to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a local license as soon as they arrived on the island. That was back when a license cost $15. Now, they’re $40 which might still be worth it but you’re also required to turn in your previous license. Obviously, we’re not going to do that when we’re only here for a couple of months.

I explained our unusual situation to the girl who answered the telephone at Lao Lao Bay. Since she didn’t know what to do with me, she transferred the call to her supervisor who told me that, unfortunately, since we don’t have Saipan licenses we’d have to pay the tourist rate. When I told her that we couldn’t afford to do that and explained that we’re seniors living on a pension and working as volunteer missionaries, she offered to talk to the club manager to see if he would be willing to offer us a discount. She called back a few minutes later to tell us that we could golf at the local rate and when we arrived at the course, we were told that the offer is good for the remainder of our stay! It probably helped that tourism, the island’s main industry, is way down right now and the courses are far from busy.

Our round actually cost us $70 each because we also had to rent clubs but that we can afford. It’s actually an amazing price given the fact that the course is absolutely gorgeous, immaculately kept and was designed by none other than Greg Norman, one of my favourite golfers of all time!

Even allowing ourselves a few mulligans, our scores were a little high but we’ll chalk that up to an unfamiliar course and the fact that we hadn’t golfed for a whole month. With hole descriptions like “out of bounds runs along the left side and there’s jungle on the right”, “you will hit your tee shot from an elevated tee box over the jungle to a green which is protected by jungle on the right, jungle to the rear and the cliff line on your left” and “from a cliff line tee box, you hit your tee shot over the crashing and thunderous ocean waves to a green which is also perched upon the cliff” I’m pretty proud to say that I only lost one ball! My tee box was practically suspended in space on a narrow peninsula jutting out over the crashing waves below. It was spectacular but while I’ve come a long way toward conquering my lifelong fear of heights, my swing was far from relaxed! The ball careened off the opposing cliff face and bounced out into the brilliant blue ocean.

Our round of golf even included a brief history lesson. Alongside one of the fairways sits a rusted out US Army M5A1 “General Stuart” Light Tank that was knocked out of action by Japanese anti tank fire on June 25, 1944 during the battle for Saipan. It was uncovered in the late 1980’s during an archeological survey that was conducted prior to the development of Lao Lao Bay Golf Resort and has the distinction of being the only tank of it’s kind in the Mariana Islands that still sits in its original combat position. They just built the golf course around it!

And then there’s one more photo for those of you who, like me, love Engrish, the bizarre use of the English language that is prevalent in some parts of the world. This one tickled my funny bone when I stopped to use a bathroom on the course. Needless to say, the bathrooms are a little classier than the blue plastic portables on our home course in Sedgewick!