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For visitors from foreign lands, the India experience has long been defined by the smells of the bazaars, the sweep of centuries in the ramparts of old forts and the rather disorienting vibrancy of its new cities. For a select few of those tourists, the Indian holiday has got a new face: the golf tour. Ask Elizabeth Torres, a 45-year old Mexican, who trooped to India last year for a golf holiday. Torres and her husband stayed at a golf resort in a Delhi suburb, putted on its manicured greens, got luxurious massages at a parlour and then drove off to Agra to pose before the Taj—all part of the package. “This tour is a must-pick for golf lovers,’’ she says. This year, she is back for golf trips to Baroda and Mumbai. “It’s exciting to explore a new place this way.”

Visitors like Torres are now a common sight on India’s emerald-green fairways. And they are driving up revenues of travel companies. “When I got into golf tourism six years ago, most foreigners were unaware of golf courses in India. Now, we are successfully operating golf tours for foreigners, both individuals and groups, the most recent being a group of 11 Australians who played at the Bangalore Golf Course and Eagleton Golf Village,” says Vinay Marwah, managing director of Uday Tours and Travel Private Limited. Agrees I.V.S. Juneja, managing director at Golden Greens Golf and Resort in Delhi, “Weekends are usually packed here with a lot of expats dropping in for a game. We have facilities for foreigners who come in to play. With the encouraging footfall and tourism companies offering golf packages, we are planning a deluxe resort.’’

What makes golfing in India exciting is the dramatic background against which the gentle game is played. Greens set up against the Himalayas—the highest golf course in the world is at Gulmarg—or the Thar Desert, sometimes surrounded by tea estates or intricately carved Mughal structures, gives the foreign tourist the unmistakable flavour of India. Baroda’s 12-hole Gaekward Baroda Golf Course, for example, often hosts foreign golfers. “We have Japanese and Europeans visitors who take up temporary membership with us. We stock a dozen golf sets and first-timers can rent them for a nominal fee of Rs 200. A resort-cum-hotel is on the cards and we are planning to provide luxury accommodation for the travellers,’’ says Mahender Singh Chauhan, director of the Gaekward Baroda Golf Club.

With the Gaekwad Palace in the background, this course combines history with the game. Golfers, on this course, not only have an opportunity to see packs of langoors between their swings but if lucky, they might even spot a dancing peacock on the tenth tee and a nervous fox on the fifth. Says Claude de Fenoyl, a 74-year-old Frenchman and a regular visitor to the Gaekwad greens, “My first love was tennis and I keenly pursued it in France. But the Gaekward Baroda Club simply seduced me. I did not know that there are such exotic golf courses in this country. It was hard to resist the game.’’ “The good part about golfing here is that it mixes the game with sightseeing,” says Torres. “When we came to India last year, I could not resist the temptation to pick up the golf clubs,’’ she says.

Some of the golf courses in Gurgaon, Delhi’s hip suburb, have been a hit with the travelling golfers. Big names like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Greg Norman have landscaped the fields and the premises are equipped with golf clinics, clubhouses, health spas, golf academies, conferences halls and restaurants. The moolah potential of golf tourism has even prompted some of the members-only clubs to open their doors to allow foreign tourists. The 18-hole Aamby Valley Golf Course with its fully floodlit golf course spread over 7,100 yards of undulating verdant space also draws tourists. Jaypee Greens, a golf resort in Greater Noida, has an 18-hole Greg Norman Championship golf course that includes a 9-hole chip and putt that is under construction. Parklands, play areas and a well-equipped golf academy are some of its stunning offerings. A hamlet of 25 cottages earlier provided accommodation here but now a 220-room boutique spa hotel is getting ready to cash in on the course’s growing popularity.

A number of Indian websites are exclusively dedicated to golf tours and an impressive number of tour operators are cashing in. The packages vary between a short three-day tourney to an expansive 19-day package. For a game that has upper-crust connotations, it comes as no surprise that the fee is steep: anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh.

India, of course, has a history to fall back on. Unlike popular golf tourism destinations like Singapore and China, we have a tradition that dates to the mid-1800s. The Royal Calcutta Golf Club was established in 1829 and is the oldest golf club in India, and the first outside the Britain Isles. The now defunct Royal Mumbai Golf Club (1842) and the Bangalore Golf Club (1876) followed. A few years ago, the Royal Calcutta Golf Club also hosted Lucifers, a bunch of goodwill golf ambassadors who, over the past 26 years, have been touring Commonwealth countries like Kenya, Zimbabwe, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and South Africa.

That history needs to be tapped more, says Brahm Majithia, who represents Singapore-based Organisation for Asian Amateur Golfers in Delhi. “In India, golf tourism is still in its nascent stage unlike Singapore and Thailand. The accommodation rates are pretty steep and flights are not well connected between the golf courses. Also, cities like Kuala Lumpur have around 40 golf courses on offer for such tourism but Delhi, for instance, has just a handful. Most of these golf courses are isolated and not connected with beaches or bustling cities’’. Agrees golf course designer Ranjit Nanda, who looks after some of the most popular golf courses in India. “India has a lot of catching up to do to promote golf tourism. Many more affordable courses and driving ranges need to be set up,’’ he says.

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