Delhi Golf Club will have to admit professional golfers
POSTRETIREMENT GIFT Will also reduce membership renewal time for retired bureaucrats
The super-exclusive Delhi Golf Club, where people need to wait up to 25 years to get membership rights, will have to admit professional golfers and let them train on its manicured, treelined greens.
Besides, a rule tweak will reduce membership renewal time for retired bureaucrats, a move seen as the government’s post-retirement gift for them.
The 1930-born coveted playground for the capital’s rich and famous admits new members through two categories — business and service.
Every year, the club admits about 160 members in the business slot for private individuals and around 40 in the other, which is reserved for Supreme Court judges and government officials. Rules say 50% slots in business are reserved for dependents such as spouses and children of members.
The Union housing and urban affairs ministry, which has a say in deciding membership rules, has allotted 10% slots to professional golfers from the quota for dependents of business members.
The club currently allows nonmember golfers, charging ₹6,000 a day to play in the 18-hole course.
The decision to grant them membership is seen as move to encourage competitive players as golf last year became an Olympic sport and India has only a handful of good courses for them to train. Besides, Indian pro-golfers are earning plaudits in international competitions.
“Golf is an expensive game. Not everybody can pay ₹6,000 a day to practice at the DGC grounds. If I have a membership, I can practise any time. You need at least nine hours of training if you are playing in the international circuit,” said 26-year-old Rashid Khan, a professional since 2011.
He cut his golfing teeth at the club, where his uncle worked, and got training rights there after impressing the stand-offish officials with a series of tournament victories.