Ricky Barnes senior golfer

U.S. Amateur champ Barnes sees sights, rubs shoulders with royalty in Malaysia

It's not every day that a golfer from Stockton, Calif., gets a chance to meet the Sultan of Malaysia. But when senior golfer and U.S. Amateur champion Ricky Barnes went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the World Amateur Championships Oct. 24 to Oct. 27, he knew from the look of the palm fronds and oppressive heat that he was not in the United States anymore.

What he did see were people haggling on the streets for food and clothing, buildings that reach farther into the sky than any in the world, and people more private and mysterious than any others he had seen.

Malaysia, a Far Eastern island nation in the Pacific, tends to inspire a sense of adventure. Many forms of religion and culture have developed in these regions, yet people of the Western Hemisphere lack any real feel for what life is like in Southeast Asia.

When Barnes met Sultan TUNKU SALAHUDDIN Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Hisammuddin Alam Shah ÷ the elected ruler in Malaysia's constitutional monarchy ÷ his assumptions about how people organize their families and respect their government changed. He saw a strict-sense of patriotism than any he has ever experienced.

"Even his daughter calls him ÎYour Royal Highness,'" said Barnes on the Sultan's relationship with his child. "She never calls him ÎDad.'"

On the first day of the tournament, the U.S. team members met with and introduced themselves to the Sultan. He had arrived via motorcade, being led and surrounded on all sides by police detail.

At first, Barnes was confused as to who was about to show up at the Saujana Country Club, but as crowds started mixing together, the course became chaotic.

"He rolled up in a Rolls-Royce, just to show up to this thing," Barnes said. "Red Carpet, cop cars leading him and cop cars behind him. I didn't know who it was when he came up."

The situation was tightly controlled around the Sultan, who was following the players in a caravan of golf carts. Barnes was a little intimidated by this at first, as the Sultan paid particular attention to the U.S. team, the eventual tournament champions.

City Life

While staying in Kuala Lumpur, the nation's capital and largest city, the team remarked at how modern the metropolis seemed, yet how it still retained its strong ethnic atmosphere. This may have been because the United Kingdom was the primary controller of Malaysia until 1957, when it achieved independence. So, it wasn't a surprise that Barnes was met by fluent English-speaking Malaysians to take care of him during his stay.

Of the nearly two million people living in Malaysia, nearly 60 percent are Muslim, so many of the women cover their heads and faces with burqas and some cover their entire bodies.

"It's a different culture over there," Barnes said.

Barnes came to view the culture of Kuala Lumpur a little differently with some added clarity. He began to realize that while other people's lives are so different, they're all so much more alike, he said.

The team stayed in downtown Kuala Lumpur at a highly "Americanized" hotel, which contained multiple restaurants of different cuisines and English-speaking locals to help the players settle themselves. With all that was going on with the ceremonies and tournament play, team members had very little time for exploring the sights and sounds of Malaysia, Barnes said.

Most of the authentic restaurants where the team ate served curry in nearly all their dishes. Curry tends to take a major role in most Eastern cooking, adding a sometimes delicate and sometimes powerful spiciness to the flavor of chicken, fish or lamb, he said.

Despite their foreign atmosphere, however, the team couldn't fight the urge to remember home at the Hard Rock Cafe of Kuala Lumpur.

One day the team went to explore Chinatown, which makes New York City seem stale. Streets around the central station, Jalan Petaling, in Chinatown close all day for foot traffic throughout the markets. There were street vendors everywhere and merchants that opened only at night, Barnes said.

The giant flea market offered everything from cheap watches and designer knock-offs to hand-sewn bags, Barnes said. Players were able to bargain for DVDs that cost less than two dollars ÷ and were movies that hadn't even been released in the United States.

In the Golden Triangle district, the team also managed to visit the tallest building in the world, the Petronas Towers, the bottom 10 floors of which forms a massive mall of every department store you could imagine Barnes said.

Bonding, playing and a little trash-talking

When the U.S. team, consisting of D.J. Trahan of Clemson, Hunter Mahan of Oklahoma State, and Barnes, arrived in Kuala Lumpur, it met up with the U.S. women's team, who still remained there and had dinner. One of the U.S. women's' player's was another UA golfer, senior Laura Myerscough. A party was thrown for all the U.S. amateur players before the women left for home, Barnes said.

It was an important goal for the three men's golfers to bond during the tournament. Their first priority was defending their title against teams like France, but an ulterior motive for them was coming together as a team that truly represented the United States.

"We got a pretty good bond," Barnes said. "We each have a role. I'm kind of outgoing, Hunter (Mahan)'s a lot more quiet and D.J. (Trahan) is a happy medium. We were definitely able to pull for one another."

In fact, the United States was one of the most watched groups of amateurs, particularly because the last two rounds pitted them against France, which led going into the final round by three strokes.

"We were actually the crowd favorites," Barnes said.

But that didn't mean they were immune from some trash-talking.

New Zealand was taunting the U.S. team over its inability to handle the weather. Malaysia is home to some of the balmiest, most humid, stinky weather in the world, Barnes said.

"It was as hot as you can get," he said. "The last day, I felt like a tennis player; after every shot I had to wipe my face. There was sweat dripping on the ball."

New Zealand went as far as to say that the Americans wouldn't be able to overcome many of the other teams that had arrived early. They thought the U.S. team hadn't had time enough to get used to the Malaysian heat, Barnes said.

"New Zealand was kind of talking trash at the beginning," Barnes explained. "They said that the Americans probably don't have a chance to win because we can't deal with the heat. We didn't like that too much."

So the U.S. team did something about it. Not physically, but out on the course.

The U.S. team swept past a three-stroke deficit by three strokes over third-round leader France to successfully defend the Eisenhower Trophy.

"That was as fine a round of golf as you will see at the amateur level," said U.S. captain O. Gordon Brewer Jr.