VK Sanju
Stepping out of the swaying cable car, sipping on a cup of Kashmiri kahwa before heading back, I had no idea that another world of green was waiting just down the road. Just beneath the clouds, ringed by mist-covered peaks, at 2,650 metres above sea level, lies a stretch of grass. From a distance, it looks like nothing more than a green carpet. Up close, it reveals over a century of history - the Gulmarg Golf Club. The highest 18-hole golf course in the world.
Leave behind the noise from the gondola riders and the crowds of tourists, and by the time you reach this course, a strange stillness settles in. Only the occasional murmur of caddies hunting for stray balls, and now and then, the clip of horses' hooves. In the distance, the peak of Mount Apharwat has already crowned itself with clouds. And in the middle of it all, a century-old sporting tradition continues, largely unchanged.
A caddy standing near the clubhouse told me - through the summer, both foreigners and Indians turn up here every single day to play. Just a two-hour flight from the searing heat of Delhi, this cold and these slopes wait for them. For those who've conquered the snow peaks on the gondola, a stop at this meadow on the way back reveals something else - layers of history, folded down to the size of a golf ball.
At 8,700 feet above sea level, this was where British officials once fled the scorching Indian summers. They brought with them hunting and golf, turning Gulmarg into their own hill-station 'summer vacation.'
Around 1890-91, Colonel Neville Chamberlain carved out a six-hole course here. Back then, the greens weren't called 'greens' at all - they were called 'browns.' In 1901, when the Maharaja of Kashmir, Pratap Singh, donated land in Gulmarg, it laid the foundation for a much larger course known as the Upper Golf Course. In 1915 came the nine-hole 'Rabbits Course.' A separate six-hole course just for children. And another, exclusively for women.
By the 1920s, Gulmarg was dotted with golf courses everywhere you looked. But, as the years passed, only one survived where the Upper Course once stood. The rest faded into history.
In 1922, Gulmarg hosted its first golf championship. The medal given to the winners bore the image of Maharaja Pratap Singh on one side, and the clubhouse with snow-capped peaks on the other. In 1929, the Nedou's Cup was inaugurated. In 1930, an intriguing match was played here too - a team called "The World" defeated Scotland.
But the 1947 partition of India, and the wars that followed, didn't spare Gulmarg either. One of the routes of Pakistan's planned invasion, 'Operation Gulmarg,' ran straight through the Haji Pir Pass and into Gulmarg itself. Even amid that turmoil, this stretch of grass held its ground.
In the 1970s, celebrated golf course architect Peter Thomson redesigned the course. Today, it stretches 6,760 yards, an 18-hole, par-72 course. India's longest hole is right here - a par-five stretching 610 yards.
Unlike ordinary golf courses, no part of the turf at Gulmarg lies flat. The entire course rises and dips, sloped throughout. Whether a shot goes uphill or downhill is the particular challenge players here must reckon with.
The course stays open only from April to November. Once December's snow sets in, the same turf transforms into a ground for skiing and other winter sports. Between June and September, wildflowers of every kind bloom here — giving fresh meaning, even today, to the valley that Habba Khatoon once named Gulmarg, the 'meadow of flowers.'