The fleeting beauty of Midlands’ winged clouds, preserved in paint, as Tatiana Ong takes her fairway shot. (Canvas)
Golf begins with a scorecard. Stay long enough, however—soften your gaze between shots—and it becomes something quieter: a form of communion. Not just with the game, but with the life that moves through it.
Across the Philippines’ most storied courses, nature does not merely frame play; it participates.
Forget the birdies—we’ve got peacocks at the 19th Hole today! Photo by Becky Albert
At The Country Club in Laguna, two peacocks cross the 19th hole—iridescent, unhurried, utterly unbothered. Becky Albert barely has time to reach for her camera phone. They do not yield. They simply pass through.
Elsewhere, the game speaks in different registers.
Totelle Dimson’s bomb of a drive in Villamor gets the GOAT’s seal of approval. Every great shot deserves a cheer (or a bleat)!
At Villamor, Totelle Dimson’s drive cuts through the Pasay heat, met by a goat’s bleat and the sudden roar of a jet overhead. At Malarayat in Batangas, Martin Leyeza’s swing rises into a chorus of roosters— an opening note no scorecard can hold.
Taking a quick timeout at Wack Wack as the deer barkadahan passes through.
In Wack Wack, the foursome of Betsy Tuason, Aloma Lopez, Rosalie Heo, and Rosalind Wee have learned to wait as a barkadahan of deer crosses the fairways. The animals move with quiet authority, claiming the golfers’ bane—roughs and water hazards—as their lifelines.
Wack Wack’s best groundskeepers: helmeted black-spotted guineafowl patrolling for insects.
One golfer’s hazard is a deer’s paradise. While the water makes players nervous, this herd in Wack Wack — now 200 strong—absolutely loves it.
Nearby, under the raucous cawing of crows, Margaret Tan slams on her brakes, nearly colliding with a white swan as it veers toward the water’s edge. Around the thick trunks of mahogany, helmeted guinea fowl tick briskly—methodical, self-assured—an unofficial grounds crew.
A timeless commute. A herd of goats bleating their way through the oldest golf course in Southeast Asia—the Iloilo Golf Course, formerly known as Sta. Barbara.
At Iloilo Golf Course, the oldest in Southeast Asia, Dionne Cu pauses for a herd of goats to pass through.
Because right of way belongs to those who never signed up.
Stay long enough, and these interruptions begin to feel less like disruptions, and more like the game itself.
Mayenne Varua laughs about Orchard in Cavite, where “cats, cats, cats” stretch across greens as if they hold title deeds. Once, as her caddie Cecile swung, “a cluster of small birds burst upward all at once— like fireworks triggered by contact.”
Traffic jam at the cart turnaround! These ‘Quackers’ have officially occupied the space where the tree aptly says: Rotonduck. Photo by Becky Albert.
Back at The Country Club, Becky Albert photographs a familiar gathering of quackers at the cart turnaround—earning the place its name: Rotunduck.
At Splendido in Batangas, twosome Magga Wu and Susan Ng and invariably pause for wild labuyo— junglefowl in jewel tones—crossing the landscape.
Eyes on the ball! Blue kingfishers perched high above, proving to be the most dedicated forecaddies on the course.
The best soundtrack on the course. Masked Golden Orioles bringing their fluty melodies to the island fairways.
Even the smallest players hold their place. Jenny Bosch and Connie Mamaril note the steady presence of blue kingfishers and yellow orioles at Cavite’s Southwoods —residents who never needed membership.
And sometimes, it is not what moves, but what watches.
Look closely at those clouds… look like furry friends smooching? A cheeky moment over Midlands Hole #6 while Becky Albert tees off.
Photo vs canvas.
Nobody beats the bird’s-eye view. An Orchard Golf forecaddie taking ball-spotting to new heights from the branches of a mango tree.
In Tagaytay Midlands, a lone bird perches high on a mango tree—still, deliberate—tracking each shot with quiet authority. Early golfers are met with a morning orchestra: the melodic fluty calls of black naped golden orioles, the rising uwu uwu of the Asian koel, the low kokok, the soft cooing of doves— unscored, complete.
Drawn to Tagaytay Midlands since childhood, Lara Santico Vicente, Kyla Laurel Olives and Michelle Ocier Mendoza briefly share the course by Taal Lake with a troop of monkeys crossing the fairways.
Every day feels like Easter at Baguio Country Club. Mimi Foronda Conde enjoys the company of the fairways’ finest residents: rabbits, roosters, butterflies, dogs, and doves.
In Camp John Hay, Mimi Foronda Conde stands still as fog lifts, revealing what had been hidden a breath before. In Baguio Country Club, she and her sister, Macky Foronda Abriol, play golf among doves, rabbits, cats, and butterflies—Easter held year-round.
While still learning the game at Sta. Elena, Laguna, Bryan and Lynn Ong, with their children Tatiana, Tory, and Tara, find themselves distracted—not by their scores, but by the flora, fauna, and fish that animate the course.
Meet the Tuko, the Teehouse Marshal at Ayala Greenfield. Busy timing the breaks and clicking the golfers into check! Photograph by Becky Albert.
And then—the most faithful gallery of all:
The migratory egrets.
They arrive without invitation and return without fail, tracing the fairways of these tropical islands. They gather along waterways and ponds, perch on trees, and lift in soft, synchronized waves—as if answering to something older than the game itself.
They do not clap.
They do not judge.
They simply watch.
From the fairways of Valley Golf to the studio. Mathilda Sun captures a heron on the lilies—the starting point for her latest sculpture and watercolor.
At Valley Golf in Antipolo, Mathilda Sula Sun captures a heron royally standing among water lilies—still, composed—a moment she will later carry into watercolor and sculpture. In the same corridor, Mencie Millonado shrieks at the sudden slithering snakes.
A beware of crocodile sign in The Country Club (Photo by Becky Albert)
In Camp John Hay, a crocodile by the water hazard captured by Mimi Foronda Conde.
Grace on the green. Leni Cabili joined by a lone egret during a round at Camp Aguinaldo.
Along the waterways of Camp Aguinaldo Golf Course, Leni Cabili watches migratory egrets assemble midair—white wings suspended, necks curved in soft S-shapes, black legs trailing like brushstrokes across the sky.
A moving gallery.
A fleeting exhibition.
More faithful than golfers, they return.
More graceful than any swing, they glide.
And somewhere along the round, your gaze lifts.
The game is no longer only on the ground.
It is above you. Around you. Continuing, with or without you.
The sky begins to play.
Clouds gather into fleeting forms, sketching stories meant for no one to keep. One afternoon, they fold into each other—two soft shapes meeting, almost kissing—before dissolving. Another day, they stretch outward, winged and weightless, like something mid-flight that has forgotten its destination.
They do not stay. That is their beauty.
So we reach for ways to make them last—exchanging the golfer’s iron for the painter’s brush, or the writer’s pen. Each asks for the same discipline: grip too tight, and the moment resists; too light, and it slips away. Somewhere in between, there is grace—where motion becomes ease, instinct becomes art, and the ordinary insists on being remembered.
Maline Flores, a longtime golfer, puts it simply: “It’s an outdoor game where nature and play are inseparable. That is why I keep coming back.”
Golfers arrive with purpose. They measure distance, read greens, chase numbers. Meanwhile, the real residents carry on, indifferent to the scorecard.
The deer graze.
The ducks circle Rotunduck.
The monkeys play through.
The peacocks cross.
The clouds reshape themselves.
And above it all, the egrets return—
their white wings turning the sky, briefly, into a gallery.
The feathered chorus continues.
They do not keep score.
And that may be the point.
