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HISTORY OF GOLF IN INDIA |
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Golf came to
India in the 19th century. India was the first country outside
Great Britain to take up golf. The first golf club in India was
the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, established in 1829. It is the
oldest Golf club in the world outside Great Britain. Golf was
played in India for almost 60 years before the first major course opened
in the USA and Europe in 1888. India was the first country outside Great
Britain to take up the game of golf. The Royal Calcutta Golf Club,
established in 1829, is the oldest golf club in India and the first
outside Great Britain. Because of the British rule, the eighteenth
century saw a mushrooming of new golf clubs in India. The founding of
the Royal Golf Club of Calcutta in 1829 was followed by the now-defunct
Royal Bombay Golf Club in 1842 and the Bangalore Golf Club in 1876 and
the Shillong Golf Club in 1886. Today there
are over 160 Golf clubs in India, including the world's highest 18-hole
golf course at Gulmarg, Kashmir (altitude 2,700 metres). The world's
highest 9-hole golf course is the Gyamchchona golf course that lies at a
height of 4968 metres in the lap of the Kanchenjunga, the third highest
Himalayan peak. Till the
1950s, golf clubs in India were affiliated to the Royal Calcutta Golf
Club, which followed the rules of St. Andrews in Scotland. In December
1955, a group of golfers got together to form the Indian Golf Union as
the controlling body for the game. The Indian
Golf Union is now affiliated to the World amateur Golf Council, and has
done a great deal to promote golfing in the country. In 1957, it started
its first training camp at the Royal Golf Club in Calcutta, where
assistant professionals and caddies were brought from all over the
country and trained to teach golf. The year 1958
is a landmark in the history of Indian golf. For the first time, the
amateur Indian Championship was moved away from the Royal Calcutta Golf
Club to
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