Swinging with the Air Force
The Air Force golf course in the heart of New Delhi is a small nine-hole layout.
The Air Force golf course in the heart of New Delhi is a small nine-hole layout. Small, but interesting. It’s a place where golf blubber makes way for taut horseflesh. No, nothing kinky going on here.
What happens is that the golf course shares the first and the ninth holes with a polo ground and invariably there is a polo game on the weekends when the glitz and glamour of the capital park themselves under an elaborate tent on one side and watch a handful of men bound around on horses swinging a mallet. As for the men who swing a more refined club, they move to different tees on these two holes when the polo ground is occupied. You don’t want to be smacking a golf ball into a charging horse, or worse, you don’t want to be smacking a golf ball into somebody sitting on a charging horse and armed with a long wooden hammerhead. Golf does not come under the category of ‘dangerous contact sport’ and golfers, generally, like to keep it that way.
The Air Force course’s relationship with the equine does not end here. Encircling the course is a race track. Not much in use now, but a few years ago I do remember a group of excited horses thundering past just as I was lining up my putt on the par-three seventh. The reason why I recall this vividly is that it’s quite an experience trying to concentrate on your putt when you have a posse doing about 100 kmph 10 feet away from your behind. Not something you are likely to forget easily.
It’s not just the company of good looking hooves that makes this place interesting. In terms of golf, almost every hole calls for some course management. There are doglegs (when fairways curve sharply on either side), a couple of water bodies, contoured greens, narrow tree-lined fairways and holes where you have to hit over trees to get to the green.
Since it’s a tightly-knit layout, dodging golf balls comes into play at times but there is an advantage, too—you get to see a variety of golf swings. Like the other day when I was walking down the fourth fairway mouthing obscenities after hitting another drive into the trees. Just then, I spotted this guy ready to drive off the fifth tee. What struck me was the ease with which he was standing over the golf ball and the correctness of his posture. All the angles seemed to be right. The body parts were in their correct place. Looking at him gave the impression that the only place he was going to hit the ball was down the middle and that is what he did.
Having managed to capture that picture in my buzzing head, I couldn’t wait to get to the fifth tee and duplicate it. I hadn’t been so excited about my golf in a long time. This was like kindness from above. I downloaded the image on the tee, swung and sure enough, the ball flew effortlessly off the club to exactly where I wanted it to. I had struck gold. I repeated that posture and tempo through that round and the results were magical. It still may not be too late to turn pro, I thought on the drive back home. Back on the course the following weekend, I hooked my drive off the first tee and topped my second. It was back to usual.
— Prabhdev Singh is Editor, Golf Digest India
What happens is that the golf course shares the first and the ninth holes with a polo ground and invariably there is a polo game on the weekends when the glitz and glamour of the capital park themselves under an elaborate tent on one side and watch a handful of men bound around on horses swinging a mallet. As for the men who swing a more refined club, they move to different tees on these two holes when the polo ground is occupied. You don’t want to be smacking a golf ball into a charging horse, or worse, you don’t want to be smacking a golf ball into somebody sitting on a charging horse and armed with a long wooden hammerhead. Golf does not come under the category of ‘dangerous contact sport’ and golfers, generally, like to keep it that way.
The Air Force course’s relationship with the equine does not end here. Encircling the course is a race track. Not much in use now, but a few years ago I do remember a group of excited horses thundering past just as I was lining up my putt on the par-three seventh. The reason why I recall this vividly is that it’s quite an experience trying to concentrate on your putt when you have a posse doing about 100 kmph 10 feet away from your behind. Not something you are likely to forget easily.
It’s not just the company of good looking hooves that makes this place interesting. In terms of golf, almost every hole calls for some course management. There are doglegs (when fairways curve sharply on either side), a couple of water bodies, contoured greens, narrow tree-lined fairways and holes where you have to hit over trees to get to the green.
Since it’s a tightly-knit layout, dodging golf balls comes into play at times but there is an advantage, too—you get to see a variety of golf swings. Like the other day when I was walking down the fourth fairway mouthing obscenities after hitting another drive into the trees. Just then, I spotted this guy ready to drive off the fifth tee. What struck me was the ease with which he was standing over the golf ball and the correctness of his posture. All the angles seemed to be right. The body parts were in their correct place. Looking at him gave the impression that the only place he was going to hit the ball was down the middle and that is what he did.
Having managed to capture that picture in my buzzing head, I couldn’t wait to get to the fifth tee and duplicate it. I hadn’t been so excited about my golf in a long time. This was like kindness from above. I downloaded the image on the tee, swung and sure enough, the ball flew effortlessly off the club to exactly where I wanted it to. I had struck gold. I repeated that posture and tempo through that round and the results were magical. It still may not be too late to turn pro, I thought on the drive back home. Back on the course the following weekend, I hooked my drive off the first tee and topped my second. It was back to usual.
— Prabhdev Singh is Editor, Golf Digest India
