Dreaming of Extreme Golf in Kabul

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  10.17.07 | 12:39 PM ET

imageIf Mohammad Afzal Abdul was Kevin Coster, the Kabul Golf Club would be his Field of Dreams. Never mind that the nine-hole course in Afghanistan is a barren patch of earth and the greens are actually “browns”—a mixture of firmly packed sand and oil. And forget that most golfing vacations are usually in the beachy lands of glossy travel brochures instead of war-torn countries. As Mr. Abdul’s website states, this is “extreme golf with attitude.”

 

“I won’t close it,”  he told The New York Times’s Kirk Semple, referring to Afghanistan’s only golf course. “I’ll be patient. People need to play golf.”

Despite its instability, we’ve noted that Afghanistan is still popular with some intrepid travelers; Lonely Planet even put out a new guidebook for the country. But as a western tour operator told New York Times travel writer Joshua Hammer earlier this year: “It’s always been easy to conquer Afghanistan. The problem is keeping control of it.”

Related on World Hum:
* Travels in Afghanistan: ‘This is no Ordinary Vacation’
* Recalling Afghanistan and a Father’s Wanderlust
* Lonely Planet Publishes Guidebook to…Afghanistan?

Photo by Neil Rickards, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Tags: Adventure Travel, Asia, Afghanistan

Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


1 Comment for Dreaming of Extreme Golf in Kabul

lawrence myers 10.19.07 | 11:21 AM ET

Herat Afganistan is a perfect spot to vacation.I know i was there people are nice [you would need some sort of security yet] But is a beatiful city full of history.Good food and the people love americans

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