How green is your valley?

looks at the increasing number of golf-based residential developments in India.

A Google search for golf villas throws up exotic names like Oro Valley, Arizona, Wantilan in Bali, Aphrodite Hills in Cyprus, Noosa Springs on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

As the game picks up in this country (it is already a rage with most corporates), Indians are running similar searches for options on golf villas in India.

Golf courses are now becoming a part of integrated townships coming up across the country (stand-alone golf courses may not break even on their membership).

While some of these will be international quality championship courses, many are just putting greens or smaller nine-hole courses. Nevertheless, they offer an opportunity to stay close to golfing greens, an aspiration many Indians would identify with.

Take Unitech Karma Lakelands, a property available only to a select few and solely by invitation. Located on NH 8 in Gurgaon, Unitech Karma Lakelands is spread across 200 acres of land surrounded by a green foliage.

It has a nine-hole golf course around which 306 villas have been planned. These are atrium houses, pavilion houses, terrace, portico and courtyard houses, and the area here ranges from 545 sq mt to 630 sq mt.

In Lucknow, Ansal API is working on its 1,500-acre Sushant Golf City (on Sultanpur Road) which offers golf villas inside an 18-hole championship golf course made by international designer Martin Hawtree. These 3,000 sq ft luxury villas have their own pool, a portico, modular kitchens, and bedrooms done in mahogany wood.

These highly customised villas cost anywhere between Rs 4-7 crore and are equipped with a three-tier security system with CCTVs. You may also take for granted complete wi-fi Internet connectivity, optic fibre cabling, water harvesting "" the works. And there's a posh club with a tennis academy attached, run by Mahesh Bhupati and Gaurav Natekar.

Pink city Jaipur is getting ready for golf villas too. Omaxe City, on the Jaipur-Ajmer express highway will have a mini-golf course (putting greens) spread over a 500-acre space. On offer are 800 and 1,000 sq yard Rajasthani kothis, 2/3 bedroom villas as well as 2/3/4 bedroom lowrise apartments overlooking the greens. Omaxe is also building a massive shopping centre and entertainment complex spread over 20 acres at Omaxe City.

A majority of these golf courses are part of integrated townships with residential, hospitality, entertainment and retail formats that emerge around the courses. "Building only villas is not feasible. A healthy mix is essential to get the maximum utility from such projects," says Gulam Zia, national director, research and advisory services, Knight Frank.

Typically, most of these projects have villas on the fringes of the golf course and as you go further, there could be highrise apartments, offices, hospitality and retail spaces too.

Around Delhi, Rishi Narain, golf course development consultant, confirms a few more golf-based projects. There's the Tarudhan Valley project which is selling a total of 135 two- and three-bedroom villas on freehold land, and the superb Golden Greens golf resort which will be marketing luxury villas on their serene property and a championship 18-hole course in the Aravalli hills.

ITC WelcomGroup is also a developing a five-star luxury resort around the Jack Nicklaus designed 27-hole, Classic golf resort in the same area.

Dubai-based major Emaar is also planning two such golf-based projects, in Hyderabad and Mohali. Boulder Hills in Hyderabad is spread over 500 acres with an 18-hole golf course along with villas and apartments and lots else.

Mohali Hills is a 3,000 acre development with an 18-hole course. But a pioneering role in this arena has been one of the first players to engage in a golfing community, the Jaypee Group that has developed a 18-hole championship course in Greater Noida. Designed by golfer Greg Norman, it has several luxury villas, highrise apartments and complexes overlooking its vast stretches of greens.

Kolkata is gearing up too. Calcutta Riverside, a 262-acre township developed on the industrial land of Batanagar, is being initiated by Riverbank Holdings. The project is a joint venture between Calcutta Metropolitan Group Limited (CMGL), United Credit Belani Group and Bata India Limited (BIL) with the latter providing the land and the development cost being borne by CMGL.

The township will comprise 5,000 apartments as well as a nine-hole executive golf course, apart from commercial and office blocks, shopping malls for commercial, retail and recreational facilities, and hospitals and general healthcare institutions alongside educational institutions.

Interestingly Goa, where golf courses are not encouraged because of scarcity of water, too is seeing a fair share of golf-based activity.

West Coast Landbase is promoting a project called Riverdale Kinley right on the border of Goa and Maharashtra with three- and four-bedroom apartments and freehold plots strategically situated on a hilltop on a river bank. The project will also have a signature 18-hole championship golf course.

Not just golf enthusiasts, even those who don't know the game too well (or at all), appear interested in finding a place in the midst of these golfing greens.

Call it the ambience factor or the need to find a home close to vast expanses of green, the aspirational value of finding a villa that opens out on to a golf course is what's attracting a majority of Indian home owners to these stretches of land.