Golf tourism is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide and South East Asian tourism savvy economies like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have cashed in handsomely on this profitable traffic over the past twenty years.

Many times in the past decade people in the travel trade have asked “Why not golf tourism into India?” The truth is that despite best efforts India has failed completely to register any kind of presence in the global golf travel market despite its heritage of possessing the oldest golf course in the world outside the British Isles in Calcutta,(Royal Calcutta Golf Club) and the world’s highest golf course ( Leh, Ladakh).

Fact is that to promote a country as a golf destination it needs to have at least one particular city/international airport close to multiple world class golf destinations. So Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur have been promoted first as golf destinations and not golf circuits hopping around the country. Each of these cities started twenty years ago with a dozen world class courses and today offer no less than 50-100 world class courses for golf travellers to choose from (thus encouraging repeat traffic).

Golfers do not go to Thailand and travel from city to city playing one course in each place. They stay in downtown Bangkok and drive a maximum of one hour to a different course each day. The courses welcome them and are completely set up for visitors.

Delhi too can boast five well established world class courses in one city within easy reach of a single hotel and international airport. These are listed here from the oldest to the newest course: Delhi Golf Club, Classic Golf Resort, DLF GC, Golden Greens GC and Jaypee Greens GC. Big selling point that Delhi offers is the winter weather — it’s the perfect outdoor temperatures in North India starting late October till the first half of December, and of early February and till late March that can make Delhi a marketable international golf tour destination.

Nowhere else in South East Asia is there weather as cool and sunny as it is in Delhi during this time of year. Golfers love this weather — entire cities and state economies in North America and Europe have been built on this weather — Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, Palm Springs, California and Florida have the Delhi-type weather – dry, cool and sunny winters. In Europe it is the Costa Del Sol in Spain and the Algarve in Portugal who have built hundreds of courses and hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms and condominiums catering to golfers from the rest of Europe.

During these winter months these North American and Mediterranean cities see literally hundreds of thousands of northerners descend. The size of golf tourism markets in Asia is growing fast and certainly even if we achieve a very small percentage of what Thailand has achieved, based on the markets of Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan, with the USP of our weather, we’re home.

Here’s a quick summary of what golf tourists look for in a destination:

n An international airport near the hotel and courses. Delhi has this.

n Multiple world class courses within an hour’s drive of this hotel. Delhi has five of these now.

n First class restaurants and visitor friendly policies at the clubs — the four modern courses of Delhi offer these.

n Total costs per person of around US$200-300 per night including room, local transport, golf green fee and caddy.

n Good weather so they can enjoy the six to seven hours they will spend outdoors on a typical golf outing.

So let’s get out there and get tourists travelling to Delhi for golf — it will boost the sport’s infrastructure, provide substantial weekday revenues and boost the local economy.