The Royal Calcutta is the oldest golf club in the world outside of the UK.\u00a0 Founded in 1829, the \u201cRoyal\u201d moved to its present location in Tollygunge, a district then on the southern outskirts of the city, in 1910.\u00a0\u00a0 (There is also a Tollygunge Country Club, just down a lane and across the road from the Royal.\u00a0 Tollygunge has a riding school, swimming pools, tennis courts and a hotel, and shares much of its membership with the Royal, which is strictly a golf club.)<\/p>\n
The Royal sits on a dead flat site, and no longer is much of a challenge for the club\u2019s best players, who are a pretty distinguished group.\u00a0 The course record is held by Arjun Atwal, the\u00a0 only Indian professional ever to play full-time on the American PGA Tour. \u00a0Atwal grew up in Kolkata and learned to play at the Royal, though he now lives in Florida.<\/p>\n
On a hazy morning in early December, I was invited to join the Royal\u2019s captain, Aveek Sarkar, for a playing tour of Royal\u2019s front 9.\u00a0\u00a0 A media mogul who tees off an dawn almost every day, the captain possesses a stately swing and a steady game.\u00a0 Rounding out our foursome were Gaurav Ghosh, a very good amateur player from a family of distinguished tee merchants, and Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, winner of the 2008 Indian Masters, a European PGA Tour event.\u00a0 Among the players in the field Chowrasia conquered were Ernie Els, Thomas Bjorn and Atwal.<\/p>\n
Compact and with a lovely smile, the player known as Chipputtsia for his great skill around the greens, takes down the Royal with ease.\u00a0 The green-keeping crew live in a small settlement surrounding the course\u2019s maintenance facilities, dead in the heart of the grounds.\u00a0 Chowrasia\u2019s father was a green keeper who lived with his family near the 9th<\/sup> green.\u00a0 As a boy, Chowrasia hung around the course, hoping for a chance to play, and was taken under their wings by some of the club\u2019s members, who recognized his talents.\u00a0 In 1997, when he was 21, Chowrasia turned professional.\u00a0 He has since won eight times on the Indian Tour.<\/p>\n The captain stewed as Ghosh and Chowrasia piled on the birdies, proof that the Royal had lost its teeth.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThis should be the hardest course in India,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cNow it\u2019s too easy.\u201d\u00a0 He was not looking for a course that imitated the cool and elegant American-style layouts popping up across India, but preferred a classic parkland course which would preserve the Royal\u2019s heritage while stiffening its defenses.\u00a0 He\u2019s campaigning now for a major renovation.<\/p>\n Recently the Royal had received a modest partial makeover, inspired not by strategic or aesthetic interests, but, in the only such instance I have ever heard of, \u00a0in response to a political struggle. \u00a0\u00a0Ten years or so ago, local residents starting clambering over the fence with their cricket gear and footballs, claiming the fairways as pitches.\u00a0 They dared the members to tee off into their matches, evoking a series of confrontations.\u00a0\u00a0 The club\u2019s CEO was assaulted and had his arm broken.\u00a0\u00a0 The police came.\u00a0\u00a0 The neighborhood sportsmen set the clubhouse verandah on fire.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when the club decided to corrugate some fairways.\u00a0 The undulations they ordered are neither deep nor dramatic, but proved effective in discouraging bowlers and batsmen.\u00a0 The new shapes had no effect on the Royal\u2019s vulnerability to low scores.<\/p>\n The clubhouse has been repaired.\u00a0 After our round, we repaired there for omelets and tea.\u00a0 After he won the Indian Masters, Chowrasia was invited to join the club.\u00a0 Though he grew up on the grounds, and lived a few hundred yards from the clubhouse for most of his life, when he accepted the invitation to join the club last year, Chowrasia stepped foot in the clubhouse for the first time.\u00a0 He was surprised to see pictures of himself holding trophies aloft on the clubhouse walls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"