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| Golf Caddies, Gulmarg, August 1946 From a private album probably belonging to a British Soldier |
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“On this same afternoon a few boys were posted on the greens to prevent leaves from obscuring golf balls. They swept with a tiny broom made of a few twigs lashed together.
Ghulam, who has been working at this club since 1929, played in Indian tournaments in the 1930’s.
“In my time I played very good golf,” he says, noting that he now has a 3 handicap. Before World War II he met “the top class of golfers” from the British Commonwealth, but now he cannot remember their names.
The 70-year-old Kashmir Golf Club caters to some of the world’s wealthiest tourists, but by American standards the club is impoverished.
The locker room is shabby and smell. The furniture is crude and ancient. Light bulbs are no more than 40 watts in brightness. The 19th hole is a collection of a few rickety table and rattan chairs. The bar is stocked with only a trifling quality of liquor, and all the bottled are dusty.”
Extract from “Playing Golf in Kashmir: Greens Fee is 81 cents and sheep trim fairways” by John S. Radosta for The New York Times, December 7, 1969
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