From behind the counter · checked 9 September 2026
Pattaya has more golf societies than golf courses, and every one of them lives in a bar: a notice board, a minibus from the door at seven, a presentation at the counter by four. How it works, who plays, the places Google names, what a visitor does to get a game, and the one thing a society's own bar cannot give it, which is a band three metres from the trophy.
Photo to come
A society's table at KQ: scorecards, a trophy, a dozen people, the band behind
Whenever the first society night happens
How it works
A Pattaya golf society is a bar with a notice board. Sign up at the counter the day before, the minibus leaves from the door at seven or eight, plays a course an hour out, and drops everyone back at the same counter by four. The presentation is at the bar, the trophies live on a shelf behind it, and the scores go on the board for a week.
Long-stayers and regulars, mostly past fifty, mostly British, Australian and Scandinavian, with handicaps that are argued about and a handful of Thai members who beat everybody. Visitors are welcome at nearly every society; you pay the day's fee and get a card and a group.
A society night, not a society day: the stage-side tables held for the group from seven, the trophy on our counter for the evening, the band from nine, and Min running one bill or a dozen, whichever the captain prefers. We are a bar beside a stage, not a clubhouse, and the difference is the band.
A minibus, a notice board, a scorer, or a society of our own. Yet. If a society without a bar wants one with a stage, message the bar and we will talk to the captain.
What Google names
Google's answer to a search for golf society bars in Pattaya on 9 September 2026. It is a short list because societies are named after bars and bars are not listed as societies; the town's real number is in the dozens, and the notice boards know it.
Of the 20 newest Google reviews, 15 give five stars; the newest is from September 2026.
I have had the pleasure of dinning here on 3 occasions. The service was wonderful, the atmosphere was very relaxed . The food on each occasion was fantastic be it Thai or Western. A credit to the owners and staff. Keep up the wonderful work 🙏
Google review · Hayden Crowle · August 2026
I’ve passed by this restaurant a hundred times, finally tried it, and must say it seems to be pretty good. I will come again
Google review · J H · July 2026
Of the 20 newest Google reviews, 12 give five stars; the newest is from July 2026.
Charles is a great communicator and golf instructor. If you're looking for golf lessons in Pattaya I highly recommend him.
Google review · David Randall · January 2026
Biggest Golf society in Pattaya , about 1000 members ☘️💯🏆 Lots of other sports and events . Also raise a lot of money every year for local good causes .
Google review · Steve MurphysLaw · October 2025
A society night at KQ
Message the bar with the day and the number. We hold the tables along the stage edge from seven, put the trophy where the whole hall can see it, run one bill or a dozen, and the band starts at nine three metres from the captain. Lee's Diner and Craft Cottage cook for the tables. No cover, no minimum, and no minibus, because you have one.
Photo to come
A golf bag leaning on the KQ counter with a pint beside it
Any evening a golfer comes in from a round
A Pattaya golf society is a pub with a tee time. The sheet goes up on the bar's counter early in the week with the course, the date and the price of the day, which covers the green fee, the caddy, the transport and, at the honest ones, the beer on the way back. You write your name on it. On the morning, a minibus leaves from outside the bar at seven or eight, with a cool box in the aisle and a dozen people who have known each other for years or since last Tuesday, and it is at the first tee an hour later.
The courses are the reason. Within an hour of Central Pattaya there are more than twenty, several of them designed by people whose names are on courses in Scotland and Florida, in condition that a municipal course at home would not recognise, with a caddy who reads the greens better than you do and does not judge. The society has an arrangement with most of them. The format is a stableford, off handicaps kept by the society's handicap secretary, who is the least popular and most necessary man in the bar.
The bus is back at the counter by four. There is a presentation, with a trophy or an envelope, and the handicap secretary's speech, and then the day's golf becomes the evening's argument. At our counter the presentation runs into the band at nine, which is the reason more than one society has moved its Thursday to us. The people at the Thursday table near the counter, who the regulars' page describes, include two societies' worth of handicaps.
Bring a handicap certificate if you have one and an honest number if you do not; the society will find your real handicap by the third round anyway. Bring clubs or hire them at the course, where the hire sets are better than most people's own. Bring cash for the caddy, who will be paid at the end of the round and thanked properly. Wear a collar. Do not wear denim. Do not bring anyone who is going to complain about the heat, because the heat is the day and the tee times are early to beat it.
Expect to be looked after. A society is a club without a clubhouse and it takes its members as it finds them: a first-timer is paired with somebody who knows the course and the bus stops at the same 7-Eleven it has stopped at for a decade. Expect the ranked list at the top of this page to be a list of bars first and societies second, because the society lives at the bar and the bar's Google score is the only number about it that exists. Expect the honest gap on the list to be honest: our own society is new, and the ones above it have been running since before we opened.
Why the bar matters is the evening. A society day that ends at a bar with a kitchen across the road, a Guinness tap, a counter long enough for the presentation and a band from nine three metres from the trophy is a society day with a second half. The tables by the stage hold a dozen and we hold them for a society that messages the day before. The trophy goes on the counter. The band, if asked in a break, will play the winner a song, and has.
Within an hour of Central Pattaya there are more than twenty courses, and the argument at the counter after a society day is which one. The ones designed by the famous names are the ones the visitors want and the ones with the highest green fees, and the societies go to them on the days the rate is right. The ones the regulars prefer are the ones with the best caddies and the least wait on the first tee, and they are not always the famous ones. A society's handicap secretary knows which is which, and the sheet on the counter says where the bus is going.
What the courses share is condition: greens that a municipal course at home would not recognise, fairways cut every day, and a caddy who reads the line and carries the bag and is paid at the end of the round in cash with a thank-you. The heat is the day's opponent, which is why the tee times are early and the bus leaves the bar at seven. Nobody who has played here in April wants a midday tee time again.
The bar's part is the sheet, the bus, the cool box, and the counter at four. What we do not have, and say so above, is a history: the societies on the list have been running for years and ours is new. What we have that they do not is a band at nine three metres from the trophy, and a table the winner does not have to give up when the band starts.
Asked
Ratings, review counts and hours are Google's on 9 September 2026. How a society works is the counter's account of the ones that drink here. We do not list societies by name and day because we could not verify them, and a wrong tee time is worse than none; if you run one and want it here with its days, message the bar and it goes up with your name on it.
How to find us
One way in, one way out. Nine bars stand between the gate and us, and each will invite you in. Keep walking.
The big Las Vegas Beer Garden sign, two minutes from LK Metro. Free entry, no ticket, no dress code.
Past Pocket Kings, Palace, the V Bar, Full House, Viva, Aces High, MGN and Black Jack. The music gets louder with every step.
A black disc ringed with bulbs, a gold crown over the K. That's the door. The toilets are just past it, which is why everyone walks by at least once.
KQ has its own pin on Google Maps, separate from the complex. Tap it and the blue dot ends at our bar, not the front gate.
Open KQ Bar in Maps