At Chandigarh Golf Club, expertise is the need of the hour

Shona Manco

Playing my regular round of Sunday golf at the Chandigarh Golf Club, I was reminded of a simple yet curt comment my mother once made to our gardener — “khurpa pakad ke mali ban jate hai.” At the moment it aptly describes the maintenance of the golf course. Of course, the harsh rainfall this year has not helped.

Trying to find a nice tuft of grass on the fairway — in a desperate attempt to find a decent lie to hit the ball off — discussion in the fourball was centred around failed attempts to create a “ladoo”. There was frustration as the ball rolled off a lie created after much struggle between the clubhead and the ball. And the tussle started all over again.

A solitary green patch of grass on the huge 16th green gave a whole new meaning to the description of an island green. ‘Browns’ is probably a more apt description for most of them.

We have four seasons a year and this, as past Captains like Col Karan Thandi and SPS Ghai say, wreak havoc on courses like ours. “We go from extreme heat to cold and the monsoon in between is equally harsh,” according to Ghai.  

In a nutshell, the fairways were just deweeded and greens consistently cut and polished to maintain them. Use of pesticides and fungicides requires experts, even more so as the world is waking up to the horror of the effect of these chemicals on the environment.

Maintenance issues

How the course will shape up in time for the Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational, to be played from November 1 to 4, is a matter of concern.

With better machinery and technology available — of which there is no shortage here — and expertise in the field, we should be able to provide more consistent playing conditions throughout the year. Yet the struggle to maintain our course is the only constant. This task is made even more difficult given the fact that it is also one of the busiest courses in the country — during the holidays, as many as 500 golfers tee off, starting at dawn.

A young amateur who has moved here from Kolkata to pursue higher studies was updating me on the Royal Calcutta Golf Course. He informed that there was no crab grass on the course since they relaid all the fairways. “The course is playing very well and currently the driving range is being developed, for which they have procured mats from Italy,” says Gurshaan Grewal, who plays off a handicap of 2. 

While the debate on the need to fly in mats from abroad could be endless, the point he made was that they were constantly trying to provide a better golfing experience for their members.

Better playing conditions will encourage more professional and amateur golfers, another aspect of the game that has seen a slump in the region.

Tough times

Jeev has been a pathfinder but even his struggle now is real. It’s not so easy any more to keep up with young golfers coming out of Bengaluru or even Delhi — they have access to better facilities, are strong and fit, and have the hunger to win. In a first ever, Jeev is slated to play a Rs 50 lakh tournament in Noida. It’s a paltry amount for a big player like him, for in the past he has sat out of tournaments held on his home course, when at the peak of his career. How the mighty have fallen.

Yet this would be the reality for most sportsmen and women in this country, until facilities and mindset undergo some drastic changes.

Capt Mohanbir, whose sons Adil and Uday played the amateur tour and have now left to pursue golf and college in the US, struggled to get the late course manager Col Paramjit to provide just one green with a Stimpmeter reading of 8 to 9 so tour players could benefit.

“It takes our boys two days just to get a hang of the greens,” he will constantly remark after visits to play tournaments at other golf courses. He is also one of the few people who feels that the future of our course lies in relaying it completely to raise the standard of play. But more on that later.