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In India you can play golf almost anywhere, for this outdoors sport is widely played by a cross-section of people to the country's often-dramatic background. In the hills and high Himalayan fastness, in metropolitan cities and in small towns, by lakes and forests, or surrounded by tea estates, out in the desert and in old British cantonments... the flavor of India is visible everywhere that golf in the country is played.
India was the first country outside of Great Britain to take up the game of golf. The Royal Calcutta Golf Club, established in 1829, is the oldest golf club in India, and the first outside Great Britain. With the growing influence of the British in the Indian empire, the eighteenth century saw a mushrooming of new golf clubs in India.
The Indian Golf Union is now affiliated to the World Amateur Golf Council, and has done a great deal to promote golfing in the country. In 1957, it started its first training camp at the Royal in Calcutta, where assistant professionals and caddies were brought from all over the country and trained to teach golf.
The year 1958 is a landmark in the history of Indian Championship was moved away from the Royal Calcutta Golf Club to be played alternately at Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. The most important annual event in the calendar of the Indian Golf Union is the India Open Golf Championship, which was first played in Delhi in 1964, and won by the Australian golfer, Peter Thompson.
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