Of smiles and sometimes scowls, on a golf course

By Rahul Banerji

Have there been moments on a golf course that you felt later needed to be shared? I’m sure it happens with anyone who has swung a club anywhere in the world.

Not every such instant is a salubrious one. It could be one that brings a smile to the face. Or equally, a scowl.

But it usually is one that leaves you with a feeling that yes, I wish others could have seen this as well!

So here’s a random thought. And one best left for you all out there to judge. Write in to us with a snap – where available – and a short description of the moment.

Tell a tale

Become a storyteller. Of pithy tales. In other words, a ‘golf-a-gramer’(with apologies to Instagram).

Ideally, each photograph (not compulsory though visuals would be appreciated) should be accompanied by a short description of what may have moved you.

It could be a passing bird. A flower. Or a piece of golf landscaping/architecture that is hard to forget. Even something you wished you had rather not seen, as will become evident further down this post.

Please do remember to add name and venue if you like. And by no means is this limited to a golf course, or even golfers. All it needs is a connexion with the game. Of any sort.

Entries can be sent in to rabaneb@gmail.com.

In a short golfing life, it has been my fortune, and sometimes misfortune, to have had such episodes.

Rude shock

The most recent one was when we returned to the course at the Hindan airbase after a longish break.

The 11^th hole at Hindan is a longish par-5 that had a magnificent neem tree plumb in the middle of the fairway. And 150-odd yards beyond, a large pond guarding the green.

Between them the two obstacles turned what would otherwise have been a straightforward hit into a challenge.

Imagine the shock therefore, to discover that the tree had been hacked off just where its trunk divided and branched out. In one stroke, a challenge had been neutralised, turned into an up-and-down hoLe.

On the flip side, I was in Chennai a few weeks ago playing the Cosmopolitan course. This almost 90-year-old establishment lies just off the city’s busiest thoroughfare, Mount Roar, or Anna Salai as it has been renamed.

Haven of peace

So less than a kilometre from the hustle and bustle of a crowded road lies an oasis of calm, and a superbly-structured course that has made best use of a limited area and turned it into a golfing challenge.

One fairway is common to two holes. On two others, you are hitting across another fairway and nets have been strung up to protect you from balls straying from the tee-box to the left or right, as the case may be.

And then there are the greens, some of which are so artfully landscaped that getting the ball in is three times the challenge of reaching the green itself. The eighth green, pictured here, is a wonderful example.

So if you find yourself smiling, or grimacing, at a golfing memory, get busy. Share. At rabaneb@gmail.com.

Also read: Jaypee Wishtown’s hidden jewel and the Indomitable Doctor