Golf : Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players (or golfers) use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes. Golf is defined, in the rules of golf, as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."
It is one of the few ball games that does not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is played on a "course", generally consisting of an arranged progression of either 9 or 18 "holes". Each hole on the course must contain a "tee box" and a "putting green" with the actual hole, and there are various other standardized forms of terrain in between such as the fairway, rough, and hazards, but each hole on a course and indeed among virtually all courses is unique in its specific layout and arrangement.
Golf competition is generally played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known simply as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes during a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play. Stroke play is the most commonly-seen format at virtually all levels of play, although variations of match play such as "skins" games are also seen in televised events.
Golf Tour of India : A Golf Tour of India is a very exclusive holiday in the "tee" gardens of India! With the pick of golfing circuits and hill-station resorts, it is a holiday in a colonial setting, with gymkhanas, bungalows and "Burra Sahib" clubs. It evokes an old-world atmosphere reminiscent of Nawabs and Viceroys, of garden parties and tall cool drinks. The Golf clubs of India are veritably period settings that have for long retained the stately grandeur of the British Raj.
The visiting golfer can look forward to much more besides a challenging test of his skill --- for most Indian courses combine a sense of history, scenic surroundings and a variety of other leisure activities with great game possibilities. Golf is as much a part of the British legacy bequeathed to India as parliamentary institutions, electric trams, the game of cricket, or the skirl of bagpipes Beating Retreat in the softness of an Indian sunset.
The oldest golf club in the world to be founded outside of England and Scotland was in CALCUTTA in 1829. As British influence spread over the vast sub-continent, golf courses and clubs were established wherever "a patch of grass grew", and in many places where it did not ! India's second golf club, Royal BOMBAY became in 1842, the second oldest in the world outside of Scotland and England. Thirty years had to go by before BANGALORE in south India started a golf club in 1876, followed in 1878 by the scenic Shillong Club in Upper Assam some 2000 miles northeast in the eastern Himalayas. AHMEDABAD, India's textile city, started a golf club in 1884 and two years later the MADRAS Gymkhana Club started a golf section. In 1887 a golf course was created in the dusty army cantonment in the erstwhile princely Nizam's dominions of Hyderabad.
Thus golf had already been played in India for 59 years before the first major courses were started in the USA and Europe in 1888. Before the end of the 19th century India had nearly a dozen golf clubs. Out of 73 "Royal" golf clubs in the world, the designation being bestowed by favour of Sovereign, India was honored with three such patronages: Royal Calcutta, Royal Bombay and Royal Western (in Nasik). The latter two now no longer exist.
With memories that go back a hundred years or more, and many a record waiting to be broken, this is a holiday that goes beyond tees and greens. While you can golf sun-up to sun-down at picturesque settings with verdant greens and rolling pastures in absolutely bracing cool mountain air, you can also explore the art and architecture of an ancient land and visit monuments that have not lost their splendor over thousands of years.
This is a holiday with a difference. Not only are you the 'guest of honors' at luncheons hosted by ardent golfers. Destination India itself extends you a 'green-carpet' welcome.
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