HISTORY

After Royal Calcutta Golf Course which was established in 1829 and Bangalore Golf Club which went on stream in 1876, the Madras Golf Club entered the annals of history in 1877. Originally started from the Island Grounds, the course was shifted to Guindy sometime around 1887. The Guindy Golf course originally had 9 holes and graduated to 14 holes and then to 16 before becoming a full fledged 18 hole golf course. Originally played off the browns, the transformation to greens was not to happen until the 1980s. All along, Guindy Golf course was known for its roughs, the tall and prickly grass bordering most fairways which posed a signal challenge to golfers with the ever changing wind.

Col Ross Thompson was the first Captain of the golf club and in the year 1878, the first inter-club competition between MGC and BGC teed off. This remains to date the world’s oldest such continuing competition between two golf clubs. In the year 2002, the golf club celebrated 125 years of golf, a feat very few golf clubs outside of Great Britain can boast of. Many things may have changed  over the years, but the Madras Gymkhana Golf Annexe breathes the history of golf in India every time the wind sweeps across the vast expanse of open land.

COURSE DETAILS

The 70 par golf course plays about 6258 yards played off the regular tees. There are separate tees where ladies tee of and a set of championship tee-boxes which give variety. The course is known for its tricky roughs and the unpredictable wind factor. The greens play true for most part and the narrow approach to several greens mask the deceptive nature of the links course with no sign of trees. The five 3 pars in the course can all prove difficult for an advanced golfer to make pars – they are long and the wind is usually blowing sideways. The most deceptive hole in the course is perhaps the 3 par 11, a short 150 yard approach to the green bounden on the front and side by out-of-bounds and a tough chip shot awaiting you if you go over the green from the tee.