By Ronald Fream^*

Golf in India

Golf development across India is accelerating after many years of stagnation. With each new course opening, the number of new golfers increases. Exclusionary membership access practices at long established private clubs, very long waiting lists to join, and a lack of publicly accessible courses in general, have restricted the growth of the game. Finland, with four million inhabitants, has constructed about 140 courses since the early 1980’s. India has not added 40 new courses. In Finland, most courses have public access. That access grows the game.

Golf in India must be rebranded and refocused not as an exclusive private enclave of restricted access for the fortunate few, but a destination - offering memorable, modern standard courses for citizen and international visitor alike on a pay and play basis. As Thailand has demonstrated, pay and play accessible golf, for resident and tourist, can bring in more than one million visitors a year solely due to golf. The popularity of golf in any country is proportional to the availability of golf courses. Exclusionary private clubs do not grow golf.

As the number of golf courses in India has increased in the last few years, primarily around major metro areas, and also now around second tier cities, more and more players are being produced. The now increasing attention to providing youth teaching programs will add keen players into the future.

Golfers, by nature and desire, seek out other courses to play, not only their “home” course. Few golfers ever play only one course when options are available. Club members travel as groups to play elsewhere. Tourist golfers travel to play golf. Therefore, golf travel from one location to another in the pursuit of a new, different or unique golf setting gains traction and momentum as more players are created. An increase in the number of Indian players within a state or region will result in intrastate, trans-regional, north-south and west-east movements as the players seek out available courses.

Areas of India, now far from a tourist image for golf, hold great potential over the coming decade. Golfers seek out the unusual, the different, the challenging course. Even better when its in an exotic setting, a change of climate and nature different from their normal place of residence in order to have a memorable game.

The North East of India: Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh paralleling the Himalayan massif, offers wonderful and often unique settings. The scenery, geography, climatic diversity, natural vegetation, culture and society, architecture, the history, local gastronomy, river edge, forest and mountain settings, the climate -all are a contrast from the main metro areas of India. There is limited available golf now, and building new courses is needed.

Assam, best known for tea, also has ancient golf courses hidden away in the tea gardens. Some of these tea garden courses are more than 100 years old, and are hardly utilized.

The Jorhat Gymkhana Club dates its golf from early 1876 and is second to Royal Calcutta as the oldest course in the country. Digboi Golf dates its origins back to 1888. Doom Dooma Planters Club first had golf in 1895. The hill station Shillong Golf Course is one of the oldest, dating to 1878.

However, early on, the sites for new tourist courses must offer ease of accessibility - that is scheduled, convenient air service. Guwahati to Jorhat by road is 314 km; to Dibrugarh 445 km. Guwahati to Itanagar is a long seven hour road trip. Driving from Kolkata is not suitable. These are not convenient or comfortable road trips.

The Jorhat airport and the Dibrugarh airport are well situated to serve regional groupings of tea garden courses and new additions.

Two to three hour’s drive from an airport is about the outer limit: one to two hours in a suv or mini van is better. In Sikkim, timely access is all important. Uniquely scenic locations abound. Train travel is low priority. The new airport soon to serve Itanagar will open access to wonderful locations in Arunachal Pradesh which only has golf now at the governor’s home.

Shillong has a new airport about an hour from the city by taxi, with air service connected to the metro cities via Kolkata. From Guwahati to Shillong the drive is 2:30h, but new road construction is helping reduce that time. Meghalaya has tranquil forested area quite suitable for golf, but not even considered now.

Doing the tourist course where the local population, including school children, is given access is desirable to enhance local play and revenue. Building golf by bringing in more players pays long term benefits.

In the longer view, as more Indians play golf and international golf tourism expands, these special historic tea garden courses, wonderful nature and “get away” features attractive to Indian golfers will be the very attractions, only perceived as more “exotic”, by foreign tourists seeking the one of a kind golfing experience. There will be a market and some wonderful sites where new golf is perfect.

The new tourist course should offer 18 holes. Future expansion should now allow area for another 9 or even another 18 holes. Experience shows that demand will grow, but land availability will decrease over time. The exception is with the ancient Assam Tea Garden courses which are mostly nine hole courses. Retaining the nine hole character is desirable. History is the draw here.

The room rates of five star standard hotels put off many golfers who prefer more modest accommodation and better golf green fee value. The majority of the world’s sixty million golfers are within the middle range of economic stature, not all at the top of the economic pyramid.

Well done four star, comfortable three star and nice bed and breakfast style reclaimed historic accommodation will find eager takers. Small golf lodge inns can offer nice accommodation at reasonable price and obtain high occupancy rates. There is always a market for luxury none the less, but the larger affluent middle market is the goal for many locations. The existing accommodation in the towns and at the tea garden courses is at times rather basic. State guest houses offer modest services and sometimes little running water. An upgrade or introduction of improved accommodation, better trained staff and modern communication must accompany golf tourism expansion.

Careful market analysis is essential to avoid overtopping the source of demand. Successful tourist golf is not how high your green fee is but how busy your course is. Value for money, high quality, a special product and outstanding service are the key. These factors can be provided in the North East nicely, and need not over price.

In tourist settings clubhouse facilities must be comfortable, functional for the particularities of golfers, well staffed, reflect the locality and culture of the region.

The bar and changing rooms must be better than adequate. A cold beer after a round of golf is delightful. The restaurant should not be overly large, but always clean, inviting, comfortable, offer an interesting locally influenced menu, and have a well trained staff giving good service. Having a selection of Indian wines will be appreciated.

There is no need to try and use a monumental large club house as the draw for the tourist golfer. The course is not a members club, it is profit focused. The golfer is there to play a special course, not sit around in an over done building that relates more to ego than local habitat paying extra for the wasted space.

Utilizing existing historic or traditional colonial and village structures for the golf club house and golfer accommodation will make economic and public relations sense at the Assam tea garden locations, and in Sikkim. Some tea garden courses have distinctive buildings that can be nicely upgraded, if not enlarged. The Shillong golf club has a very attractive club house, last remodeled in 1924.The course needs design remodeling and agronomic improvement but could easily become more of a tourist destination course.

The Jorhat Gymkhana clubhouse has wonderful old character and atmosphere. This building could be an executive meeting center as well as a historic place to play golf. There are colonial bungalows nearby that could offer unique accommodation. The Tokai tea research facility is nearby. Tea tasting can be arranged. Utilizing ample local residents for staffing in the clubhouse and accommodations and buying local farm produce and services helps expand the prosperity of the region which must be a driving force in bringing golf tourism to these once remote locations.

As with most golf clubhouses in general, Fream’s law: “The larger the clubhouse the smaller the long term profits” holds true. This is the fact when new clubhouse buildings are to be part of a new tourist golf destination.

The golf design process must relate clearly to the local site. Tourist golf in the North East must not look like a copy of a course from New Delhi, Sydney or Florida. Some golf designers produce repetitive design solutions, regardless of locality or particular site and market conditions. Name brand players as designers cost much more than the profit return in emerging golf areas. It may be that the project should involve holiday housing and hotel facilities. Including accommodation facilities adds to the revenue stream. Some locations can justify executive seminar or small group meeting rooms at the clubhouse. Perhaps in a few years, some of these tea garden courses or new courses near the larger cities could find market demand for primary residential homes overlooking the golf course. Real estate golf is a growth industry in the metro areas.

Careful, coordinated master planning is essential. Attracting golf tourists to the North East of India must focus upon and reflect the particularly “local” conditions on offer.

This requires creative, innovative, environmentally sensitive, culturally aware design solutions for the golf and the clubhouse. Not every golf architect is site sensitive. Rubber stamp and done before solutions have no place in tourist golf in the region we are discussing.

One of a kind, very site specific organic design, with an unencumbered open attitude to the solution greatly helps the success of the project. Stereotyped sameness or ego driven solutions are not for the North East golf tourist circuit. Ego driven design is excessive cost design. Golf construction must follow correct and site specific agronomic expectations, but the means of implementation may differ from more mature golf locations.

Utilizing ample local hand labor has a place along with locally sourced construction materials. Construction methods must fully consider the impact of monsoon conditions upon long term play and maintenance. Experienced construction supervision is necessary. Experienced golf maintenance expertise will be essential.

In the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, and at Shillong, there can be turf grasses that offer wonderful playing conditions that cannot be produced in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai. To experienced golfers, having a chance to play on Bentgrass greens, Kentucky Bluegrass fairways, and the Fine Fescues is a special treat uncommon to much of India and the tropical world. These grasses do require knowledgeable maintenance management.

There are some sixty million golfers worldwide. Six million players are in the European region. Around twenty million golfers reside between Mumbai and Tokyo and Jakarta to Beijing. Golf in the North East has great potential to attract good numbers of international players along with the growing group of domestic players. The basis is there; land can be available, irrigation water is available. The user supply is growing. That golf is new in the North East or only now exists at a tea plantation or hill station provides opportunity to introduce the concept in well defined and tested, practical, profit focused ways.

Tourism is the world’s single largest industry. Golf tourism is a unique niche market of mostly well educated, middle and upper income aspirational persons seeking a particular product.

Keep in mind that golfers seek variety, and search out new golfing experiences when on holiday. Combining the ancient tea garden courses with stylish new courses adds interest and attraction. Offering “critical mass” groupings of several courses within an hour or so drive apart, or a collaboratively marketed circuit of diverse courses and resorts across two or three North East states adds attraction for holiday golfers. The international golf tour promoters, who can package groups, are drawn to multi course destinations that are accessible and unique.

There are more than 1000 members of the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO). This influential grouping is keen to have new, different, exotic destinations to market and utilize. Local tour operators and those in the large metro areas need to join with the international golf tour specialists to create seamless coordinated services to please the visiting golfers.

North East India can gain much from exploiting in a harmonious way, the natural gifts available across the region by putting special golfing destinations on offer.

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Credits

Originally posted by RonaldFream on 01 Jun 2011.
All contributors: RonaldFream,

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