New courses and improved facilities draw the city’s upwardly mobile to the game.
For Oyster Properties proprietor K Srikanth Rao, playing in the real estate arena from Monday to Friday is only a warm-up to his real passion: teeing off every weekend at the Hyderabad Golf Club (HGC). “Every Saturday and Sunday, Hyderabad sees over 1,000 golf widows,” quips Rao, a member of HGC for six years now.
Rao is almost an old-timer in a rapidly-transforming city that is starting to draw upwardly-mobile denizens to the game, thanks to new courses, improved facilities, recently opened golf stores and, well, pure snob value. But it’s not just Hyderabad’s elite that is thronging the greens. “With over 1,000 members and still counting, we are now expanding our area, making it a nine-hole course. We have an even mix of elite and middle-class members,” says Vikram Dev, a member of the club’s committee.
HCG, a Rs 10-crore project promoted by the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation and Hyderabad Golf Association, is nestled between the historic Nayaquilla and Qutub Shahi tombs, lending a picturesque setting for the six-hole course. It is one of a pair of golf clubs that have come up in the past two years, the other being Emaar-MGF Boulder Hills. The city’s other major courses are run by South Central Railway and the Army.
Even so, Hyderabad has fewer golf courses for civilians than other cities. New Delhi leads the league with 15, followed by Bangalore with five, and Mumbai, Pune and Chennai with three each. Nevertheless, there is growing enthusiasm for the game in Hyderabad and sheer affordability could have something to do with it. According to Dev, HGC charges just Rs 100 for a five-hour game. Of course, that’s after making an initial Rs 20,000-40,000 investment on a set of clubs.
But why golf? Explains LoginSoft Consulting CEO & MD Suresh Reddy Saribala, who is based out of Hyderabad as well as Washington DC: “This is a nice place to spend time away from office. Twice or thrice a week, I am at HGC or Boulder Hills. It is a great place to meet people, make new friends and spend your leisure time.”
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But for Ramana Reddy, managing director of Hyderabad-based Helios Insurance Services, golf is simply an addiction. He’s played several other sports, but has stuck with golf for five years now. “In the case of other games, you stop after a certain age. Golf is not physically too demanding. It’s addictive. It is like meditation and helps in de-stressing,” says Reddy.
The Emaar-DLF Boulder Hills Golf Course & Country Club, a sprawling leisure and residential community spread over 531 acres, recently hosted the KPMG and Ctrl S Leadership golf tournaments. Designed by golf course architect Peter Harradine, the by-invitation 18-hole course is interspersed with rocky outcrops, tree-lined streets and water bodies.
The competition saw around 100 golfers leaving their boardroom worries behind to vie in the one-of-a-kind corporate tournament. “The event was an ideal platform for informal interaction among business leaders. The setting was ideal for people to get to know each other professionally and personally,” says Vikram Doshi, executive director of KPMG.
As Stephane Fabregoul, general manager of The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace, who participated in the tournament, puts it: “For me, it is all about consistent golf. You need to keep your focus and concentrate. At work, it is what I have to do, too: stay focused. That’s why I love golf.”
Ch Mohan Rao, managing director of city-based Chepyala Agros, believes golf is a game where one plays for oneself, and it teaches honesty and integrity as nobody else counts the strokes. “If you are lying in terms of score, you are lying to yourself. That is what I think is the best part of golfing,” he adds.
With increasing interest in the sport, the sale of golf accessories is rising, too. For instance, Planet Sports Retail, a sports accessories retail chain of the Future group that has four stores in Hyderabad, is seeing growth of around 40 per cent in golf accessory sales every year. “Growing awareness that golf is relatively cheap and accessible has accelerated our sales in golf accessories, golf carts, gold club heads and golf wear over the past two years,” says Rakesh, general manager of Planet Sports.
Despite the surge of interest in Hyderabad, real estate companies aren’t planning any new courses in the near future. But that won’t dishearten the city’s growing number of players, who still have world-class greens on which to practice their swing.