The Gulmarg Golf Club is a public

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

in a meadow at

Gulmarg Gulmarg (), known as Gulmarag (; ) in Kashmiri, is a town, hill station, popular skiing destination, and notified area committee in the Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is located at a distance of from Baramulla and from Sri ...

Baramulla district Baramulla district or Varmul (in Kashmiri) is one of the 20 districts in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Baramulla town is the administrative headquarters of this district. The district covered an area of in 2001, but it w ...

, Jammu and Kashmir,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It lies 35 km from Baramulla city. The golf course, at an elevation of above sea level, is the second highest green golf course in the world. It lies from

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...

in the west. The golf course gets covered in by a thick layer of snow during the winter. It is open from April to November.

History

Gulmarg, which means ''the meadow of flowers'', is a

hill station A hill station is a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The term was used mostly in colonial Asia (particularly in India), but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by European colonialists as refuges ...

surrounded by pine and fir. The Gulmarg Golf Course with a 6-hole course was built within a meadow by Colonel Neville Chamberlain in 1890 at Gulmarg, a hill station near Srinagar. In 1922 the first Golf championship was played at the course with the introduction of Nedou's Cup in 1929. The course was later redesigned and turned into the Gulmarg Golf Club by

Peter Thomson Peter Thomson may refer to: * Peter Thomson (golfer) (1929–2018), Australian golfer * Peter Thomson (diplomat) (born 1948), Fiji's Permanent Representative to the United Nations * Peter Thomson (footballer) (born 1977), English footballer * Peter ...

in 1970. It was developed in a links-style in accordance with its surrounding natural landscape and made more challenging by relocation of the greens. The golf course hosted the Northern India Cup regularly until 1989, when it was shifted to Delhi. In 2011, the golf course was redesigned by Ranjit Nanda a Delhi-based golf-architect. From December to March, the golf course becomes a winter sports center for skiing and snowboarding.

Legacy

The Gulmarg Golf Club, at an elevation of above sea level, is the second highest green golf course in the world. It has 16 different species of

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the w ...

s along with the creeping bent on the greens. The 18-hole golf course features the country's longest hole (the 8th, a 610-yard par 5). At , the Gulmarg Golf Course is the longest golf course in India.

References

{{Golf clubs in India Sport in Jammu and Kashmir Golf clubs and courses in India Sport in Srinagar Sports venues in Jammu and Kashmir 1890 establishments in India Sports venues completed in 1890 Tourist attractions in Baramulla district

History

Legacy

See also

References