A lot has been written on the subject of Golf Tourism in India over the past decade – some  accurate and others wishful. Private bodies have tried but on the inbound tourism front, little has been achieved till date. However recent initiatives by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India to form a committee and conduct a workshop with various stakeholders in the golf industry are indicative that there is some government awareness now of the untapped potential of golf tourism into India.  An important and significant step, which if followed through with action, could actually set us on the path to becoming a destination.

The fact of the matter is that with 50 million golfers around the globe and Asia being the fastest growth area, golf tourism is a multi billion dollar industry and India, despite being a late entrant,  could become a significant niche player in this golf tourism market.

What are some of the things we need to do to get a small share of this huge pie ?On a recent visit of mine to Bangkok and rounds at two of the city’s best courses  -Suwan Golf Club, the site of GaganjeetBhullar’s 2010 Asian Tour International win and Thai Country Club which has hosted the likes of Tiger Woods, it is clear to me that there can be no better model for India to follow than Thailand which has by far the largest share of the golf tourism pie in this region. Without making too much fuss about areas which we in the golf industry can’t control – like easier visa norms, better priced hotel rooms and car rentals, let us focus on what the golf community can improve to make India a more golf friendly destination

The one basic which needs to be mentioned at the cost of being unoriginal are maintaining high turfgrass standards and playing conditions – and thereby placing more emphasis on training of greenskeepers and club managers.  Thailand has at least 100 modern championship 18 hole courses in great condition which not more than six or eight courses can boast to match across India. A second basic which should be taken for granted, but surprisingly is not always available – top quality clubhouses.  It is shocking but true that there is not one golf clubhouse in India which can boast of matching the overall size, facilities and standard of any of the top 50 clubhouses in Thailand ! Spacious locker rooms, spas, luxurious pro shops , conference hall facilities and multiple indoor and outdoor dining options are par for the business in Thailand.

A third often overlooked aspect of the golf tourism drivers are the service standards of caddies and other club staff. If you take the case of Thailand – this aspect has been perfected with the colourfully uniformed lady caddies adding a touch of class to this important interface between the visitor and the course. Not only are the Thai caddies smartly turned out in “designer” uniforms but they are also knowledgeable of golf etiquette, club selection and reading greens for the visitor, polite at all times, honest and hardworking.  The presentation and training of caddies and other club operations staff is perhaps one stark difference that hugely differentiates Thailand from India and is a factor that contributes immensely to the experience of a visitor. Most Indian clubs lack sadly in this department.

Another small but vitally important aspect of club operations is the ease with which a first time visitor can find his way around the club to register for the round, visit the pro shop and locker room, rent clubs, hook up with the caddy and get to the starting teebox on time. Most Thai clubs have perfected the art of directing visitors through well trained and genuinely concerned golf operations staff, clearly marked directional signs and smooth systems to ensure you can arrive at the club within ten minutes of your pre booked tee time and yet tee off as scheduled. Well trained golf operations staff, standard procedures, efficient bag tagging, rental club dispensing, caddy allocation and proper signage are required to enable this type of efficiency.

Yet very few of our clubs are geared up for visitors. At most Indian golf clubs, negotiating your way around from arrival to the first tee requires “insider knowledge” and familiarity. A first time visitor can be led around in circles by the time he actually gets to the first tee. Ask yourself that if you were a first time visitor to your club, how easy would it be to find yourself around ? Are visitor friendly processes in place ? How easy would it be for a travel company to book tee times for a group at your club ? Unless we confidently produce positiveanswers, we in the golf community cannot expect foreign visitors to enjoy their experience of visiting Indian golf courses, recommend India to friends and come back for repeat visits.

It is the responsibility of every Indian club and every committee member to relook at all processes and systems from a visitor’s point of view if we are to begin the transformation to a golf tourism friendly country. There is a lot to be gained in terms of enhanced revenues and the image of your club. The sooner we can revamp our systems to become visitor friendly, the better.

Strong backing from major golf clubs around the country has resulted in the Toyota – IGU National Inter Club Junior Championships  getting underway tomorrow at Gurgaon’s tough Golden Greens Golf Club with 50 teams from 15 major golf clubs across the country. To me this shows that our golf clubs are getting really serious about supporting junior golf and vying for bragging rights of having the best junior team in the country.

Representation from Bangalore’s Karnataka Golf Association ( KGA) and Bangalore GC, Kolkota’s Royal Calcutta GC, Rambagh from Jaipur, BPGC from Mumbai and of course many of the clubs from the National Capital Region will provide keen competition in the 2^nd annual edition of this tournament.  The biggest contingent is the 12 teams from Gurgaon’s DLF GC, a neighbour to Golden Greens, followed by Delhi GC with 6 teams. However with four top ranked juniors making up the two teams from KGA, the defending champions look tough to beat. I am surprised that none of the capital’s clubs have managed to produce a duo which looks like giving the KGA a run for their money.

Till recently junior golf has been largely an individual effort  of kids supported by their parents but with the initiation of the Inter Club National Championship, the importance of supporting a strong junior coaching program at many clubs seems to be gaining momentum. These kids are India’s future international champions and with Golf making its debut at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games,  this initiative by the sponsors and the Indian Golf Union will surely strengthen the base of Indian golf. The competition over the next few days will be intense but Golden Greens’ awesome test of golf from the championship tees, over 7000 metres long will be the toughest test these juniors face during the entire year. ( Rishi Narain Golf Management)

As predicted, the strong team from KGA, Bangalore could not be stopped on day two of the Toyota-IGU National Inter-Club Championship despite a poor first day performance as their stars Khalin Joshi, recently crowned Bangladesh Men’s Champion returned an awesome four under par score of 68 combined with a steady 75 from 2010 Toyota Player of the Year TrishulChinappa to total 298 over two days. It was creditable to see the less celebrated duo of Harjot Soni and Arjun Sharma from Army ( AEPTA) Delhi hold their form to return identical 75’s, matching yesterday, to finish on 300. In third was the defending duo from KGA of Rahul Ravi and Syed Ahmed on 302.

The tough Golden Greens golf course played to its true international championship caliber as the juniors found it difficult to return low scores.  This makes the 68 from Khalin even more remarkable and easily the best round of the tournament, the only score under par over both days. The undulating fairways, penalising rough, deep sand bunkers and sloping greens proved more than a match for juniors used to playing on flatter, wider courses elsewhere in the country. However I believe that this type of championship course is closer to conditions the juniors experience in Europe as it is designed on the lines of seaside links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Certainly a good place to hone the skills for any junior.The tour returns to Golden Greens in two weeks for the Toyota Haryana Juniors followed by the Northern India at Noida GC and the Southern India at KGA.

ALL RESULTS: Girls Teams : 1^st – Delhi GC – 329, RidhimaDilawari (83, 76) SeherAtwal (82,88) . 2^nd Delhi GC 329 ,MeherAtwal (81,82) and MilliSaroha (82,84). Individual Boys A&B:1^st- Honey Baisoya 146 (74,72)DGC; 2^nd-Khalin Joshi 148 (80,68)KGA. Category C:1stTanveerKahlon 162 (80,82) DLF,2nd Arjun Puri 176 (90,86)DGC. Cat D: 1^stKshitij Kaul DGC 166 (84,82), 2nd SunhitBishnoi 168 (86,82) DLF.Girls individual A&B, 1^st – Vani Kapoor 161 (83,78)on tie-break, 2nd Vrishali Sinha 161( 80,81). Cat C, 1^st-Amrita Anand 155 (74,81) NGC , 2nd ArushiPandey, AEPTA 182.( Rishi Narain Golf Management)

There has been an incredible amount of money invested in cricket’s Indian Premier League. This is great for the maturity of the Indian sports management and promotion industry. Finally domestic cricketers beyond the starting Indian 11 are getting paid decently. Their earnings are starting to match the earnings of India’s top golfers like Jeev Milkha Singh and Jyoti Randhawa who routinely have been pulling in an average of Rs 3-4 crores per year for the past 5-8 years.

However the Indian golf industry is about far more than the earnings of its top players through tournaments. Golf is a multi faceted industry encompassing real estate development, tourism facility development, tourism revenues as well as apparel, equipment and accessories.

While the Indian golf industry is in its infancy, signs point to a high growth phase. If all goes well we will see the golf industry in our country outstrip the size of the cricket tamasha industry within 5- 10 years.

Lets take a look forward at a mature golf economy – the United States. Recently, Stanford Research International, a highly reputed not for profit research company published a US Golf Economy Report based on 2005 figures. Check out the facts : The US golf economy directly was valued at US$ 76 billion and including indirect revenues it was worth US$ 195 billion.

The report confirmed that golf remains a very significant segment of the U.S. economy. At $76 billion in 2005 direct revenues, the U.S. golf economy is larger than the motion picture and video industries industry. At $28 billion, revenues from golf facility operations exceed facility revenues from all professional and semi-professional spectator sports combined.

The report identified the financial contributions from the game’s core segments, including golf facility operations ($28 billion); golf course capital investment ($3.6 billion); golfer supplies ($6.1 billion); tournaments, golf associations, and endorsements ($1.7 billion); and charities ($3.5 billion). Also included is the impact on “enabled” industries, such as hospitality/tourism ($18 billion) and real estate ($15 billion).

These totals represent increases in the previous 5 years in each respective category, with the exception of a decline in golf course capital investment, a category that encompasses both existing facility capital investment and new golf course construction. The decline in this category was expected and reflects a slowing rate of golf course construction as part of the market’s correction to an oversupply of courses.

These numbers augur well for the development of the Indian golf economy. Even if India achieves only 1% of the size of the US golf economy it will be worth US$ 760 million or Rs 3000 crores approximately ! This figure is not far fetched.

An average 18 hole championship golf course which occupies around 150 acres of land requires an investment of between 25 – 50 crores and each such development usually is supported by the sale of 400 residential plots worth an average of of Rs 1 crore and a 100 rom hotel worth Rs 50 crores for a total of Rs 500 crores approximately in a typical full scale golf development. If there are 6 such developments created in India , the industry will generate the Rs 3000 crore figure.

So golf is not about hitting a white ball around a green course, It is about enhancing lifestyle, real estate values and tourism revenues. Countries are capitalising on this industry at a furious pace. Current hot spots growing the world golf economy are the Caribbean, Eastern Europe & China . The Mission Hills Golf Resort in Shenzen near Hongkong has built 12 courses and three five star hotels with an estimated investment of Rs 1500 crores and will generate an expected Rs 5000 crores in real estate sales and Rs 200 crore of tourism revenues annually.

Investment is flowing into golf through private developers, but governments have to recognise the potential of the industry and create policies that will promote and facilitate more such developments. We have just touched the tip of the iceberg in India so many years of swinging times ahead will follow !

The month of April in world golf means one thing to golf fans across the globe – The Masters championship at Augusta, Georgia, USA. The Masters is the first major championship of the year and the golfing world looks forward to crowning its first “grand – slam” champion. In our era the question is not “Who will win ?” but “Will Tiger Woods win again ?”

In the past decade, Augusta has been dominated by Woods like it never has by anyone else. It was at Augusta, back in 1997 that a 21 year old Woods made the world actually sit up and take notice that he was redefining the game as we knew it. It was at Augusta 1997 that Tiger launched a billion dollar golf business empire. It was at Augusta that a golfer became a teenage pop icon.

Woods’s 12-shot victory at the 1997 Masters was a moment that changed the game. It broke down barriers, shifted perceptions and ushered in a new era in sports. It offered the first glimpse of the dominance that was to come. It created an icon the likes of which golf had never seen.

Woods had already been an outstanding amateur golfer winning six National titles consecutively including three US Amateur Championships. He was college player of the year. However, there have been other young superstars who have failed to make the transition from amateur to pro ranks. No one was prepared for Tiger to make such an impact. Most experts said that the game would never be dominated again simply because there were too many good players each week and any one of the 100 US Tour players could win in any week.

Woods started the 97 Masters with a remarkable first day score of 70 which included 9 hole scores of 40-30. He then shot 66 on Friday, 65 on Saturday and 69 on Sunday, breaking scoring records along the way.

As a result of Woods dominance of Augusta and thereafter, the golf world would soon undergo massive changes in every area. Woods’s popularity led to a s urge in interest in the sport. More young people took up the game than ever before , including minorities who had long been disinterested. Junior programs started , such as The First Tee, which till date have introduced an estimated 500,000 kids from backgrounds which would otherwise never have been exposed to golf. Television coverage and viewership of golf increased, notably whenever Woods was playing in a tournament and the US PGA Tour’s new TV contracts enabled prize money to increase five fold in the next 10 years !

Prize money further increased, as companies lined up to sponsor tournaments and advertisers looked again at buying time on golf broadcasts. Suddenly, sports editors of major newspapers and also popular celebrity magazines were sending two and three reporters at a time to follow Woods’s tournaments.

As Woods became a fitness buff , other pros and budding stars followed. His body changed from skinny kid to that of a championship boxer . Pro golfers, all of a sudden became recognized as serious athletes.

Woods’s win at the Masters also changed the way tournament courses prepared themselves. The organizers at venues of the PGA Tour courses began looking at ways to lengthen and toughen up their course s . New teeing grounds which made the holes play 30 – 70 yards longer were added. Golf course architects, designers and developers altered their plans. Golf Equipment companies rushed to compete for new “Tiger – Like” power designs for the average player. Trees were added. Rough on either side of fairways was grown longer. Nike launched into golf equipment and apparel on the back of a 10 year 100 million dollar contract with Woods. Other golf courses tried to “Tiger-proof” their layouts so Woods wouldn’t make a mockery of their ‘pre Tiger era’ layouts.

The tougher the y made the courses , the better Woods seemed to play. Whether the courses were long or short, firm or soft, tree-lined or bare, Woods found a way to destroy them and his opponents . He would win the Masters again in 2001, 2002 and 2005. He would win the 2000 United States Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots and the 2000 British Open at St. Andrews by eight.

In the 11 years since that first Masters victory, Woods has continued to evolve . He’s overhauled his swing twice. He’s gotten married and become a father. He’s won 12 more majors, second only to Jack Nicklaus, and he’s taken his game and his sport to new heights.

But no matter where his game goes, and no matter how many major titles he collects , it was that April week at Augusta in 1997 as the moment when it all really began for Woods. It was a moment that changed the game, a moment that changed the sport forever.

One of the qualities that has attracted large corporate institutions, to associate their brands with golf is the game’s very clean and fair image. Unlike most other sportspersons, golfers don’t throw massive tantrums or argue with umpires. They don’t head-butt their opponents, don’t slap their teammates and they don’t fake injury to get the other guy a penalty kick !

Golfers are responsible for reporting and confirming their own scores and often call rule violations on themselves – imagine a tennis player over ruling a chair umpire and calling his shot out at the crucial stage of a match ! That does not happen in tennis but in golf it does.

Golf should undoubtedly get the sportsmanship award among various globally commercial sports. One of the greatest gestures of sportsmanship came in 1969 and the story is so inspirational, it shows why the game teaches excellent values to youngsters. Since the occasion was during the US vs Europe Ryder Cup matches and with the Cup being played from September 21-24 th , this year ( this time in Ireland) , it is fitting to recall the moment in detail.

The Ryder Cup, started in 1897, is played as a great rivalry between 12 man teams from across the Atlantic. Till 1985, when all Europeans joined the hitherto British side, Americans were dominant, winning easily nearly every time. In 1969, under captaincy of Sam Snead, one of the fiercest competitors ever, ( who holds the all-time record for most professional victories, 82, compared to Tiger Woods, 55), the Americans were expected to win easily again. Snead, as always, badly wanted to win.

Leading the British team at the Ryder Cup in 1969, Tony Jacklin, was the reigning British Open champion. (the next year he went on to win the US Open, the only European to win the title) . The son of a lorry driver from Scunthorpe, England, Jacklin, through hard work and determination had emerged as Britain’s greatest golfing superstar in decades. After years of dominance by Americans in all the major championships, Jacklin had beaten the American challenge led by Jack Nicklaus, still considered the greatest player ever, in his prime. In Britain, Jacko, as he was known, flamboyant and charismatic, enjoyed the popularity of a rock star.

On that final day of the 1969 Ryder Cup, being played in Britain, the match on the final day was all even with both sides having won equal number of matches. The final match was a classic : Jacklin vs Nicklaus. The No 1 players on both sides playing the final match to determine the result of the cup. On the final hole, the score was all even and both players were on the green in regulation. Nicklaus faced a four foot putt for his par 4, and with Jacklin lying two and a half feet away for his par, it was critical that Nicklaus holed his putt. Well Jack was legendary at making pressure shots when he had to and so he did on this occasion. Immediately the pressure shifted to Jacklin and although a two and half foot putt for a pro is a virtual certainty, with the fate of the Ryder cup hanging in the balance, the putt may as well have been twenty feet !!

Nicklaus, the American team leader, known for his graciousness and gentlemanliness, however stunned everyone, when he picked up Jacklin’s ball and conceded the putt to him, ( which is in keeping with the Rules of Matchplay format) immediately deeming the 1969 Ryder Cup a tie. This incredible gesture of sportsmanship earned the spontaneous approval of the crowd and as realization of the impact of this shared match dawned on the teams, they universally applauded Nicklaus’ gesture.

For Nicklaus, the concession was a moral imperative. If Jacklin had been made to putt, chances are he would have been successful. But Nicklaus would have felt awkward, forcing a world champion the indignity of making a two and half foot putt. Had he missed, Nicklaus and the American team would have scarcely celebrated winning the Ryder Cup due to such a debacle by a world superstar.

As one of Britain’s greatest national heroes at the time, Jacklin, had he missed that short putt, would have suffered inestimable damage to his international reputation and popularity, something Nicklaus felt should not even be thinkable. For Nicklaus, conceding the putt was not something he had to think about long, it was a sporting gesture, one that came completely naturally for this great competitor.

Afterwards, the American captain, Sam Snead was extremely upset with Nicklaus for not forcing Jacklin to make the putt. After all there was that slight chance of still getting an American win. However, Nicklaus stood by his decision and history has never questioned him for it.

As Jacklin went on in his career, two decades later, he became the most successful European Ryder Cup non playing captain ever, leading Europe to several upset victories over the mighty Americans and he still remains one of Britain’s greatest sporting icons.

In his recently released memoir “A Boy’s Own story” , Jacklin recalls Nicklaus gesture fondly and what an impact that moment had on his career. All sports lovers would do well to never forget this, one of the greatest gestures in sporting history, which teaches youngsters that while winning is important, it is equally important to be dignified in victory, defeat and in a tie !

Rishi Narain is a former Asian Games Gold Meallist and runs Rishi Narain Golf Management. He can be reached at Rishi@rngolf.com