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We pay our green fees, 1200 baht (about 40 bucks) for me with my membership and 1600 for his guest fees. Both include golf carts and caddies.
Okay, time to talk about Thailand golf, and caddies in particular. Almost all Thai caddies are women and it is a decent-paying job. Not great, but certainly a step up from working in rice fields, standing behind a counter in some shop, or cleaning houses. The caddies are generally fairly young, cheerful, good at their jobs, and they add a huge amount to the game. If you find a good caddy, you can book her for all your rounds. I had a great caddy at Chiangmai Highlands, Aura, and she worked with me for 12 years until my membership ran out and I couldn't afford a new one. When she first started caddying for me I played with a group called The Royal League that teed off at noon. That's right, I joined a group that thought teeing off at the absolute peak of Thai heat was a really good idea. They liked it because they could transition right from golf to drinking beer. Nothing like an overly competitive round--you'd thing we were playing the National Open-- under a blazing sun to bring out the worst in all of us.
Aura in the beginning was quiet and shy, and kind of scared of The Royal League because the golfers yelled a lot. We had big arguments about rules infractions and handicaps to the point where one night the leader of the league walked out of a bar in Chiangmai and was attacked by one of his golfers. Yes, the gentlemen's game.
After playing in that league I finally got out and discovered my quiet, timid caddy had a wonderful sense of humor and was a strong woman. We called each other "Boss". She is still one of the best people I've met in Thailand.
At North Hill, where I now play, I got lucky and found Ploy, who is also excellent and has a better golf swing than I do. I was playing alone one day with her caddying and I was feeling pretty good about my game. Then we had a free moment and she swung my driver. Awesome!
I like to think I have more empathy for the caddies because I caddied a bit when I was in high school. I wasn't great. I wore thick glasses and didn't see the ball, so I had to hope my golfers knew where it went. My worst loop (18 holes was a "loop", caddies were "loopers") was carrying two bags on a hot day, when one golfer sliced and the other hooked. I spent four hours running back and forth across the fairways and on the last hole, an uphill par 5, the smallest caddy out there had to help me get those bags up the hill.
Jeff and I pay our fees and head out in the dark to meet the caddies. We are on the tee at 6:15 and it's still pitch black. About 6:25, two Japanese guys, walking, drift up to the tee and we realize we have to tee off if we want to go first and not be held up by slow play. The caddies use their phone flashlights to try to see the ball and we tee off in the dark. The phone flashlights are useless and nobody sees the balls but mine feels left, Jeff thinks his is down the middle. We