Kodaikanal Golf Club

Overview: Kodaikanal Golf Club is an 18-hole, par-71 course in the hills of Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. Its current official layout lists 6,139 yards from the blue tees, with shorter red and white tee totals also published. The scorecard shows a routing built around wooded hill terrain and a set of memorable hole names, including Old Long'un, Devil's Dip, Punch Bowl, New Long'un and Home. Rather than presenting the course as a flat resort layout, the club's own account places it among rolling grassland, streams and wooded hills. The result is a highland round whose identity comes as much from its setting and changing elevations as from its scorecard.

History: The club's official history begins with twelve golfers who found a stretch of grassland in June 1895 and judged it suitable for golf. They included American and British missionaries and Indian civil servants, and the club grew in a hill station that was still difficult to reach by road. More than a century later, the club remains a member-supported golfing institution with more than 400 members. Its history is therefore tied both to the early development of Kodaikanal as a hill station and to the continuity of golf in a remote, wooded setting.

Did You Know? Kodaikanal has an unusual captaincy tradition: the outgoing captain drives the newly nominated captain into office from the first tee. The course names also preserve some of its personality. The official card moves from Old Long'un and Devil's Dip through Punch Bowl and New Long'un before finishing at the par-five Home. The scorecard's sequence of long par-fives and short, elevated-feeling par-threes gives the historic club a character that is easy to recognise hole by hole.