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VOL.4 NO.4

October 2012

AB

AD GOL

FC

HYD E

LUB

GREENS @

GOLCONDA

THE HYDERABAD GOLF CLUB NEWS DIGEST

Contact: Phone: +91 40 6558 8103 Email: hgagolf@gmail.com Web: www.hyderabadgolfclub.co.in

AN OFFICER, A GOLFER AND A GENTLEMAN

At HGA, we have been fortunate in having dedicated and committed men of high integrity at the helm of affairs right from its inception 19 years back. The last 10 years has been very trying and it is to the credit of the management that they have not succumbed to the numerous pressures that they were subjected to by the so called activists and selfpromoting NGO's. The Honorary Secretary of the Club as its Chief Executive Officer is in direct line of fire in most of these on-going activities. In addition to this he has the task of running the club and managing its future where the buzz word is growth. The present incumbent occupying this chair Kant to some and BLK to others he before taking over as the Secretary he had seen action in the the thick of action at the HGA. developer he has totally cause of HGA. The fruits of now have a 16 hole golf maintained in the twin House with a fine eatery and venue. I first ran into Kant some 30 Airport. Both of us were then companies and it was natural to that country. For a long time and meetings at airports Hyderabad for short sojourns in Being an avid golfer he would head Course at Bolarum during these visits association going. of the Secretary is Captain B.L.K.Reddy. had been a Joint Secretary for a year for the last 4 years. As an IAF pilot Bangladesh war and has been in A pilot cum farmer cum land devoted the last 4 years to the his labour are apparent. We course which is the best cities, a very popular Club a hugely popular party years ago at Schiphol employed by Dutch that we made frequent visits both our Dutch association continued. He used to visit between his flying duties. straight to the Army Golf and that is where we kept our

I wanted to provide our readers with an inside kaleidoscopic view of the travails and successes at HGA during his tenure and invited Kant for a walk the talk interview. During all these years it has been an education to talk to him on a number of varied subjects like for example how things functioned in a remote corner of Nigeria. This time around it was another type of education to talk to this officer, golfer and more so a gentleman and get to know his views on a number of subjects pertaining to HGA. Details of this journey through time follow in the subsequent pages. We had our Nineteenth Annual General Body on the 30th of September. This is covered in this issue.
Gorur V.S. Murthy

HYDERABAD GOLF ASSOCIATION

A WALK THE TALK EVENING WITH BLK

Hyderabad has not had such a wonderful monsoon season for a very long time. The 14th of September was a typical cloudy but brilliant day at HGA when I had a long session with our Secretary on a walk cum buggy tour traversing the entire course. During the a tete-a -tete, we covered a lot of interesting topics. Excerpts follow.

The old office at Sahtum Cheruvu now used as stores warehouse What are the 3 most memorable moments for you during your tenure as the Hon. Secretary? The old office at Sahtum Cheruvu now used as stores warehouse The first moment that comes to mind is moving out of the old office at Sahatum Cheruvu to the new club area, after we'd begun to build and develop the new club house infrastructure. This camp office was a 3 man operation out of 2 rooms and a verandah covered by tin roofing. From this humble abode our plan was laid to build facilities that would attract new members, both in order to help the club become financially viable but more importantly, to help new golfers discover a love of the game. The move to the new club house meant a great deal to me as I could then visualise our hopes for the golf course and a club house beginning to come to fruition. The second moment was the long overdue signing of the tri parte M.O.U's between the ASI, the A.P Government and us. I had . made numerous visits to New Delhi and even missed our 2009 AGM for this historic day. This was the moment we knew we finally had all the necessary, hard-won clearances from the Ministers of Culture, Tourism, and Law to go ahead and build the golf course we'd been dreaming of building. The third moment that calls itself to mind is seeing the last seven holes of the golf course materialize in only three months. That's an impressive effort by itself, but it was all the more gratifying because our team and I had been involved in so much fire fighting and crisis management just to neutralize the NGOs and other vested interest lobbies bent on sabotaging our golf project. We had by now managed to progress from 3 to 16 holes total, the last seven sprouting up in record time. What are the future plans for the Club House? The club house expansion plans are finalised. We will add 80000 square feet of club house

facilities, including a swimming pool, spa, gym, indoor games, banquet hall, and guest rooms. We are also planning to add 70000 square feet of parking space, enough for 200 cars. We hope to complete all these improvements in the next two years. What were the difficulties faced by HGA in the making of the new 7 holes? There seemed to be no end to the legal battles with NGOs and vested interest lobbyists. They wanted to promote a graveyard on the current golf course site, even though there was never a graveyard on the site nor anyone buried there for many decades. There were times when the situation seemed desperate. The judiciary came to our rescue, the truth prevailed, and the PIL case was dismissed. Thus the new seven holes were born in a mere three months. Water. Do we have adequate supply for all our needs? Our present irrigation system is a semi-automatic integrated system with a single-point pumping station at Jamala Kunta. This system will be beefed up with sophisticated pumping mechanism so as to serve not only the present holes but also the championship course which will come up in the future. Thankfully we will not have water as a problem to cater to our irrigation needs as we have access to a huge sewage inflow available for treatment and use by us. The ambiance and greenery thanks due to plentiful availability of treated water makes our course one of the most scenic not only in India but also in the world. Year 2015. Where do you think HGA will be by then? Our goal is to create an18 hole international standard golf course by 2013. The club house expansion should be complete by the end of 2014. In the years 2013 and 2014, we will also concentrate on our infrastructure and gear up to organise national-level golf tournaments. Our target is 200 new golfers, along with the development of a junior programme to encourage the golf champions of tomorrow. Our true dream is to be able to stage international golf events in 2015. Our golf course has every promise of being a full-fledged World Heritage course, and we're very excited to be able to share it with the international golf world. Funds. How important is this for HGA future? s For me this is absolutely vital. We are constantly on the value addition mode to provide our members with not only top class facility but also a value for money experience We are constantly re-inventing and re-thinking on additional facilities to meet the needs of our members. We now have finalised our basic plan for a state- of the- art club house. It is because of this constant up gradation that we have been able to attract members with an entry fee which started at Rs.1 Lakh and was Rs.7.5 lakhs when we took our last entrants. That the window of 100 new members gets filled up in 2 weeks speaks volume of the popularity of our club. This in turn has allowed us to build up a healthy reserve. Gorur V.S.Murthy

ADDICTS 2012- HYDERABAD MEET 17th,18th &19th AUGUST 2012

The 63 year old Addicts Golfing Society of Southern India has nearly 1500 members and holds its tournaments at all major golfing centres in South India as also an International Meet outside the country. The Hyderabad Leg is held in August and attracts entry from all over Southern India. We had 140 golfers vying for honours for 3 days of golfing jamboree. HGA golfers stole the show by winning a major number of trophies. Our members performed very well in the tournament held at our Golf Club. Several outstation participants had a lot of praise for the new holes that were put in play recently. They also appreciated the high quality of standards maintained at our club house and also the quality of our fairways and greens. The following is the winning list of our members : Dhillon Mahipal Singh (Net stableford Singles) Chandrashekar Koppara (Net stableford Runners) Pradeep. K. Mittal & Keshav Bhupal (Doubles Winners) Chandrashekar Bongu & SrikanthRao. K. (Doubles Runnerup) Dinesh Reddy. B (Gross Winner) Dhiren Rameshchandra (Gross Runnerup) Capt. B. L. K. Reddy (Senior Singles Winner) Keshav, Sudhir Bajaj, Avinash, Dinesh Alla, Anil Reddy, Chinna Babu (Team Winner)

We are proud of them.

Winners of Addicts 2012

19TH ANNUAL GENERAL BODY MEETING ON 30TH SEPTEMBER 2012

HGA came alive with the presence of a number of old timers who had come to attend the AGM. It was camaraderie time once again with fond memories being recounted and exchanged.

19th AGM in progress

No Change of Guard at HGA The Elections scheduled to be conducted on the 30th September 2011, was not held as the following candidates were re-elected unanimously. J. Vikramdev Rao President Capt. B.L.K. Reddy Secretary A. Bhaskar Reddy Committee Member Sundar K. Sundaresan Committee Member M. Ramchander Raju Committee Member The following continue to serve in the Managing Committee Asadulla Pasha Captain C. Dayakar Reddy Joint Secretary B.V. K. Raju Hon. Treasurer M. Jayant Tagore Committee Member B.S. Muralidhar Committee Member Avinash Gupta Committee Member

Management Committee 2012-13

MONTHLY MEDAL ROUND RESULTS- THIRD QUARTER 2012

Gross Winner Net (H/C) Winner Net (H/C) Runnersup Closest To Pin Straightest Drive

March
Ch. Mohan Rao(41pts) Saribala Suresh Reddy (39pts) Anil Meka (14'8") Mst. Rahul Ajay (1'10")

April
K.Chandrasekhar(42pts) Ch. Mohan Rao (41pts) Lokesh Jayswal (5' 1") Y. Nagi Reddy(11")

May
C. Rohan Reddy (32pts) B. Manohar Reddy (45pts) M. Srinivas (32pts) P.V.J.Varma (6'3") Umapathy Reddy (2')

Mst. K. Anirudh (31pts) C. Rohan Reddy (31pts)

Single ClubTournament 26th August 2012

Category
Gross Net 0-9 Net 10-18 Net 19-24 Straight Drive Closest to pin

Winner
Keshav Bhupal (21 pts) C.Rohan Reddy (30 pts) Mohd. Ahmed (36pts) Santosh Lohiya (33pts) D.S.N.Raju (0.7") C.S.Rama Rao (28)

Runners-Up

C.Dayakar Reddy (27 pts) Capt.Sameer Kumar (35pts) Ritesh Daga(31pts)

Our member Mohan Tayel was Runners Up at the Toyota Karnataka Golf Festival held on the 6th September at KGA Bangalore. Congratulations Tayel. CALLAWAY GOLF OPEN TOURNAMENT - 8TH July 2012 RESULTS CATEGORY 1 (0-14) CATEGORY 2(15-18) CATEGORY 3(Ladies, Children below 12 yrs & Senior Citizens) NET WINNER Mst. Navjay NET RUNNER UP Mst. Rahul Ajay

NET WINNER Mr. Venkat Kona Rao NET RUNNER UP Mr. Ashwini K. Reddy

NET WINNER Mr. Nagi Reddy NET RUNNER UP Mr. A. V. N. Reddy

CLOSEST TO PIN-Hole No 8 WINNER RUNNER UP LONGEST DRIVE-Hole No. 4 WINNER RUNNER UP STRAIGHT DRIVE-Hole No 7 WINNER RUNNER UP

- Mr. Chinna Babu (7 11") - Mr. Krishna Guduru (8 1") - Mr. B. Jayram Reddy (258.4"Yds) - Mr. Agastya Reddy ( 254.11") - Mr. Lokesh Jayswal (4 6") - Mr. B. V. K. Raju( 5 2")

HYDERABAD JUNIOR OPEN TOURNAMENT

An open Junior tournament was held in August for all the juniors of Hyderabad/Secunderabad. There were 45 entries and there was intense competition in the 5 age group categories. Our Junior players have performed very well winning majority of the prizes. The following is the winning list of our Junior Players : - Miss. Sneha Singh (Winner - Category E) - Mstr. Milind Soni (Runner Up Catetory E) - Mstr. Tej Reddy (Winner Category D) - Mstr. Navjay Jaiswal (Runner Up Category D) - Mstr. Rahul Ajay (Winner Category C) - Mstr. Hardik Chawda Runner Up Category C) - Mstr. Karan Bharat (Winner Category B & AB) - Mstr. Hashim Ali (Runner Up Category B)

The Juniors/ Sub Juniors Bi Monthly Tournament

Category

Winner Mst. Karan Bharat (76) Mst. Karan Bharat (76) Mst. Rahul Ajay (80) Mst. Tej (88) Ms. Sneha Singh (36)

Runners-Up Mst. Santosh Reddy (83) Mst. Hasim Ali Khan (89) Mst. Hardik Chawda (83) Mst. Navjay Jayswal (92) Ms. Milind Soni (39)

A B C D E

Our Sub Juniors at the Bi Monthly Tournament

By The Rules Two friends were playing golf one day. They decided that they would adhere strictly to the rules with no improving their lie. After a few holes, one guy's ball landed on a cart path. As he reached down to pick up his ball to get relief his friend said, "We agreed that we would not improve our lie. No matter how much the first fellow tried to explain that h e w a s entitled to this relief, the second fellow would not allow it. So the man went to the cart to get a club. As he stood over the ball he took a few practice swings, each time scraping the club on the pavement, taking out big chunks of blacktop and sending out lots of sparks! Finally, after several practice swings he took his shot. The ball took off and landed on the green about 6 feet from the pin. Great shot!" his friend exclaimed. "What club did you use? "YOUR 7-iron!" he replied. Alternate Shot A golfer playing in a two-man alternate shot tournament drove his tee shot to the edge of the green on a par-3 hole.

His partner, playing the second shot, managed to chip it over the green into a bunker. Undaunted, the first golfer recovers with a fine shot to within one foot of the hole. The second golfer nervously putts, and sends the ball one foot past the hole, leaving the first golfer to sink the putt. "Do you realize that we took five strokes on an easy par-3?" says the first golfer. "Yes, and don't forget who took three of t h e m ! " answered his partner! New Clubs Carl and Dave were getting ready to tee off on the first hole when Dave noticed that Carl got a new set of clubs. Dave asked Carl how he liked the clubs and if they've helped his game at all. Carl replied, "Oh yeah, they're great clubs! They've added at least 25 yards to my slices, about 30 yards to my hooks and you would be surprised at the size of my divots!"