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Does finishing 2nd count as a defeat? In some circles it may, but when you win a big white shoe bag adorned with pink and purple ribbons, it sure feels like a great victory.

I made a two-day visit to Hua Hin this week to visit two golf courses (Banyan Golf Club (now Pineapple Valley Golf Club Hua Hin) and Springfield Royal Country Club) and to enjoy the salubrious weather prior to Christmas, and to make a discreet reconnaissance of this popular resort area in advance of my sisters’ impending visit to Thailand.

Every Christmas season, I am reminded of the Cratchit family’s dinner of that “rarest of all birds.” You may imagine my excitement, then, when I dined at Yung Kee this week, one of the best restaurants not only in Hong Kong but in all of Asia.

That is the question many people are asking today after my photo was prominently misnomered at Sina.com. I was at the extraordinarily good Spring City Golf and Lake Resort Resort in Kunming this week to speak at the Turf Management – Best Practice III conference.

I was at the Philippines last week to play in the Founders Cup tournament at The Orchard Golf and Country Club. As sponsors of the tournament, Asian Turfgrass Center along with Bernhard and Company were able to enter a team in the sponsors division, and playing off scratch (I don’t have an official handicap at present, unfortunately!

My golf this month was concentrated in one week of play at the Philippines, where I played in the Chairman’s Cup at Sherwood Hills and then the Founder’s Cup at The Orchard.

Finding myself in the Philippines on Thanksgiving this year, I went to a christening party for the new offices of Golforce Inc., a company that provides golf course construction and maintenance services in Asia.

I was interviewed by Golf Digest Singapore earlier this year during a break in the 2nd IGOLF Singapore Golf & Environment Forum at the Keppel Club. That interview, where I speak about the Asian Turfgrass Center and the challenges of managing turfgrass in Southeast Asia, can be seen on the video page of the Golf Digest Singapore website or you can view the video on YouTube.

My unprecedented winning streak is over. Undefeated since April, I played this month at TAT Filipinas GC (below) in what we can call a no-decision and made a stirring come from behind victory at Thailand’s Muang Kaew GC later that week.

I was at Tokyo and Chiba last week to attend the Japan Turf Show and for the wedding party of my friends. Tokyo in November is a splendid place, and I experienced four days of sunshine and ideal autumn weather.