India’s Historic Golf Clubs: From Royal Calcutta to Kodaikanal
Golf in India did not begin with resort courses, gated developments or golf holidays sold as packages.
It began in ports, cantonments, racecourses, administrative towns and hill stations. The game arrived through colonial institutions, but it did not remain only there. After independence, these clubs were inherited, altered and absorbed into Indian sporting life. Indian players, administrators, grounds teams, coaches and members shaped what many of these places became next.
The histories are not simple.
Many of India’s older clubs were formed within restricted social worlds. Their pasts cannot be separated from British colonial rule, exclusion, membership control and the politics of land. But neither should their stories end there. More than a century later, these courses also hold other histories: of Indian competition, local maintenance, hill-station life, urban pressure, changing access and the long continuity of the game.
Some of these institutions are now nationally ranked championship venues.
Others matter less because of tournament prestige and more because of where they are: on a racecourse in Chennai, within a dense city in Bengaluru, across older ground in Delhi, or in the high air of Ooty, Shillong and Kodaikanal.
This is not a ranking of the best golf courses in India.
It is a journey through some of the country’s historically significant golfing institutions — and through the cities, cantonments and hill stations that shaped them.
Royal Calcutta Golf Club: where the record begins
The story begins in Kolkata.
Royal Calcutta Golf Club was established in 1829 as the Calcutta Golf Club. The club identifies itself as the oldest golf club outside Britain. Its early golf was played at Dum Dum before courses were developed on the Maidan and, later, at the present Tollygunge site.
The word Royal was added in 1912, following a charter granted during the reign of George V. That same year, an 18-hole course opened at the club’s new grounds.
Its history is not fixed to one piece of land. The club moved through different parts of the city before settling in Tollygunge. This movement matters because it shows how golf in India was tied to the changing geography of the colonial city: military ground, civic space, racecourses, clubs, gardens and later urban development.
Royal Calcutta matters beyond age.
It connects the earliest organised golf in India with the contemporary game. The club has hosted major amateur and professional events, including the Indian Open, and remains one of the country’s recognised golfing institutions.
For a golfer travelling through India, Kolkata offers more than one round. The course sits within a city of clubs, racecourses, gardens, colonial civic structures and dense layers of Bengali cultural history. Golf becomes one entry point into the city, not an isolated resort activity.
Bangalore Golf Club: a course inside the cantonment city
Bangalore Golf Club dates to 1876.
Its official history records that it began as a 12-hole course established by a group of British residents. For decades, parts of the land were also used by the army as a training ground. In the 2000s, the course was substantially restructured as an 18-hole layout.
That transformation is part of the story.
Historic golf clubs are not preserved unchanged. Their courses move, shrink, expand and are redesigned as their cities grow around them. Trees mature. Roads arrive. Boundaries change. Land becomes more valuable. The old course has to negotiate with the modern city.
Bangalore Golf Club now occupies a rare piece of central Bengaluru. Its continued presence is striking because the city around it has transformed almost beyond recognition. Offices, housing, traffic, flyovers and commercial development now press against a landscape still organised around fairways and trees.
For travelling golfers, Bengaluru is one of the most practical starting points for a South India golf journey.
It has multiple established courses, good air connections and road routes towards Mysuru, Coorg, the Nilgiris and, farther south, Kodaikanal.
Members should confirm visitor eligibility directly with each club. A famous name or reciprocal relationship does not automatically guarantee a tee time.
Madras Gymkhana Club: golf inside the racecourse
Madras Gymkhana Club was established in 1884 as a sporting and social institution in what is now Chennai.
Its golf annexe occupies an unusual site at Guindy: an 18-hole, par-70, links-type course laid within the horse-racing track of the Madras Race Club. The spatial arrangement gives it a character quite different from tree-lined private estates, hill-station courses or newer residential golf developments.
The course belongs to a longer sporting geography in Chennai: the Island Grounds, Guindy, the racecourse, club institutions, military ground and civic sport.
The city’s heat, wind and dense urban environment produce a very different round from those played in the southern hill stations. Golf here is not softened by altitude. It sits inside the city’s weather, traffic, institutions and sporting memory.
For Chennai-based golfers, Madras Gymkhana is also strategically relevant to Kodaikanal.
Kodaikanal Golf Club has listed Madras Gymkhana among its reciprocal affiliations. Members contemplating a Kodaikanal trip should still ask their home club and Kodaikanal Golf Club to confirm the current introduction, documentation and tee-time procedure before travelling.
This is the first important distinction in golf travel:
A reciprocal affiliation may provide a plausible route to access.
It is not the same as guaranteed access.
Ootacamund Gymkhana Club: golf on the Nilgiri plateau
Golf began taking shape in Ootacamund — now officially Udhagamandalam — towards the end of the 19th century.
The Ootacamund Gymkhana Club traces the origins of its course to Colonel Ross Thompson in 1889. Permission to form a nine-hole course followed in 1891, while the Gymkhana Golf Club name came into use in 1896.
The course occupies part of the Wenlock Downs, a broad upland landscape that feels structurally different from golf in Chennai, Kolkata or Bengaluru.
Open ground, elevation, wind and the Nilgiri climate shape the round before architecture does.
Ooty and Kodaikanal are often grouped together as South Indian hill stations, but they are not interchangeable. Their landscapes, building traditions, approach roads, seasonal rhythms and histories differ. For golfers, that difference creates the basis of a strong multi-course journey rather than a reason to choose one over the other.
A golfer might play in Ooty, continue through Coimbatore and travel onward to Kodaikanal — provided access, road time and tee times have been confirmed in advance.
The hill-station courses ask for a different kind of golf. The air changes. The ground changes. The weather can decide the day. The course is not only a sporting surface, but part of the hill station’s landscape.
Kodaikanal Golf Club: an 1895 course in the Palani Hills
Kodaikanal Golf Club was founded in 1895.
In 2025, the club marked 130 years with the release of a commemorative book, For the Love of Golf. The original course was later extended to 18 holes in the early 1950s. Today it plays as an 18-hole, par-71 hill course, with fairways moving across the undulating terrain of the Palani Hills.
Its importance is specific.
Kodaikanal is not generally placed beside DLF Golf & Country Club, Delhi Golf Club or Karnataka Golf Association in rankings of India’s leading championship courses.
Its reputation rests elsewhere: age, altitude, terrain, South Indian club history and the rarity of playing golf within one of the country’s best-known hill stations.
That is a stronger and more defensible position than calling it one of India’s best courses.
The holes have names such as Old Long’un, Devil’s Dip, Pulpit, Sentinel and Home. The names reveal a course shaped not only by yardage, but by local memory. They also distinguish it from newer courses whose identities are often built around a single architect, a residential development or a tournament.
Kodaikanal Golf Club is a private members’ club. Its website does not currently publish a complete, definitive public visitor procedure covering every category of player. Golfers should therefore confirm eligibility, introductions, handicap requirements, current fees and tee times directly with the club.
Members of affiliated clubs have the strongest initial route. Kodaikanal Golf Club has published reciprocal affiliations with clubs including Madras Gymkhana Club, Karnataka Golf Association, Hyderabad Golf Association, High Range Club, Coimbatore Golf Club, Bangalore Golf Club, Mercara Downs Golf Club and others.
Conditions may differ by club and date.
A reciprocal club relationship should be treated as a starting point for enquiry, not a promise of play.
Staying in Kodaikanal for golf
A Kodaikanal golf trip works particularly well for a small group of experienced golfers who have already secured — or can credibly secure — access to the course.
The attraction is not only the round.
It is the rest of the day.
Golfers can play in the morning and return to one house by the lake. Partners who do not play can remain near Kodaikanal Lake, walk through Bryant Park, visit the town, sit in the garden, read indoors or spend the morning at the bungalow.
A group can gather again for lunch, tea, dinner, a bonfire or wood-fired pizzas, depending on the day’s arrangements.
This is where The Dunnottar Bungalow becomes relevant.
The Dunnottar sits on Lake Road by Kodaikanal Lake. It is a carefully restored 19th-century Scottish bungalow that has been in the Puliyadi family since 1947.
The Whole Bungalow has five bedrooms, all ensuite, across the North and South Bungalows. When booked together, the full property and its one-acre grounds are private to one group, with room for up to 15 guests.
Breakfast is included. Lunch, dinner, snacks, tiffin, grill and wood-fired pizzas are available on request and charged separately. Room heaters, hot water, Wi-Fi, on-site staff, daily housekeeping and paid laundry provide practical support after a cold or wet round.
The Dunnottar cannot grant access to Kodaikanal Golf Club or guarantee tee times.
Once golfers have confirmed their arrangements with the club, the Bungalow Manager can help coordinate local taxis and practical details.
For four to six golfers, the proposition is simple:
Play in the morning. Return to one house by the lake.
Shillong Golf Course: golf among the Khasi Hills
The history of golf in Shillong is unusually layered.
The Shillong Club was established in 1878. Its official account traces an early nine-hole golf course to that year at Laban. The present course developed subsequently, with the 18-hole layout established by 1924.
Set at altitude, the course moves through a highland landscape of rolling ground and pine. Its atmosphere differs from both the dry urban courses of the plains and the southern hill stations of the Nilgiris and Palani Hills.
Shillong is important to any serious account of golf in India because it widens the map.
A history centred only on Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru would repeat the same metropolitan focus found in much Indian travel writing. The northeast has its own club histories, landscapes and sporting traditions.
Shillong Golf Course demonstrates how golf travelled not only through port cities and cantonments, but also into administrative settlements in the hills.
It is also a destination where golf can sit within a larger journey through Meghalaya. As elsewhere, travellers should confirm course access directly rather than treating a historic club as a public tourist attraction.
Bombay Presidency Golf Club: a 20th-century Mumbai institution
Bombay Presidency Golf Club dates to 1927.
Located in Chembur, it represents a later chapter than Royal Calcutta, Bangalore, Madras or the 19th-century hill clubs, but it remains one of Mumbai’s established golfing institutions.
The course underwent extensive redesign and modification in the 2000s, demonstrating again that historical standing and architectural change often coexist.
Mumbai’s development makes such land especially consequential.
A golf course in a rapidly densifying city is never simply sporting infrastructure. It is also an argument about land, membership, access and which parts of an older urban order are retained.
For golf travellers, Mumbai can act as a western gateway to an India itinerary. It also offers a useful contrast: a metropolitan course before the journey moves towards the more open landscapes of the south, northeast or north.
Delhi Golf Club: playing among older monuments
Delhi Golf Club was established as a municipal course in the early 1930s and became a corporate entity in 1950.
Its championship Lodhi Course and shorter Peacock Course occupy land containing substantially older structures. Tombs and monuments from the Lodhi period sit within the course, making the historical encounter different from that of a colonial-era hill club.
Here, golf does not merely take place on an old course.
It passes through an archaeological landscape.
The course was redesigned by Peter Thomson in the 1970s, and the Peacock Course emerged during that period. Delhi Golf Club has subsequently remained part of India’s professional and championship golfing circuit.
Delhi therefore belongs in this article for two different reasons.
The club is important within modern Indian competitive golf, while the land itself carries a much longer history than the institution playing across it.
That combination makes Delhi Golf Club one of the clearest examples of how several eras can occupy the same ground.
What makes a historic golf trip different?
A historic golf journey should not be reduced to collecting famous club names.
The distinction lies in the relationship between the course and the place around it.
In Kolkata, golf connects with the commercial and institutional history of the former imperial capital.
In Bengaluru and Chennai, it belongs to the cantonment and sporting-club geographies of two expanding southern cities.
In Delhi, the course passes among monuments older than organised golf itself.
In Ooty, Shillong and Kodaikanal, the sport moves into the hills, where altitude, rain, wind and terrain alter the game.
A modern championship course may offer more predictable maintenance, advanced practice facilities and easier packaging.
A historic club offers something less standardised: a round shaped by a particular city, landscape and institutional history.
The two categories should not be confused.
Nor does one need to be declared superior to the other.
Access must be part of the planning
Many historic Indian golf clubs are private institutions.
A traveller should not assume that a green fee alone provides entry.
Access may depend on:
Membership of an affiliated or reciprocal club
A letter of introduction
A member host
A valid handicap certificate
Visitor-day restrictions
A confirmed tee time
Tournament and maintenance schedules
Club-specific dress rules
The first call should be to the golfer’s home club.
Ask whether it has a reciprocal relationship with the destination club and whether the secretary must issue an introduction letter.
The second call should be to the destination club.
Confirm the date, tee time, handicap requirement, current charges, equipment, caddie arrangements and clubhouse access in writing.
Only then should non-refundable travel be organised around the round.
This is particularly important for Kodaikanal.
The club is historically significant and maintains an affiliation network, but Dunnottar guests do not receive automatic playing rights.
For the access-specific guide, see Golf in Kodaikanal: Planning a Stay Near Kodaikanal Golf Club.
A South India golf route
For an access-secure group, a South India journey could connect several distinct forms of golf.
Begin in Bengaluru, with one of the city’s established courses and the institutional history of Bangalore Golf Club.
Continue to Chennai, where golf at Madras Gymkhana sits within the unusual setting of the Guindy racecourse.
Move into the Nilgiris for the upland landscape of Ootacamund Gymkhana Club.
Where access permits, add Coimbatore, Munnar or another affiliated club.
End in the Palani Hills with Kodaikanal Golf Club and several nights together at a bungalow by the lake.
This route should be treated as a framework, not a ready-made package.
Each club controls its own access, fees and playing calendar. Road journeys between the hill stations are also substantial and should be planned conservatively.
For a smaller trip, Kodaikanal can stand alone.
Four to six golfers, two or three nights, one or two confirmed rounds and one house for the group is a far cleaner proposition than attempting to cross several states in a few days.
The next chapter is not only about preservation
India’s older golf clubs carry difficult and valuable histories.
They are records of colonial institutions, restricted membership, urban development, changing land use and the spread of organised sport.
Their continued relevance cannot depend on presenting that past as uncomplicated grandeur.
Their future lies in what happens now: who plays, who learns, how clubs support younger golfers, how they maintain their landscapes and how access evolves without erasing the particular character that made each institution distinct.
Royal Calcutta, Bangalore, Madras, Ooty, Kodaikanal, Shillong, Mumbai and Delhi do not tell a single story.
Together, they show how golf took root in India through very different places — and how the country subsequently made the game its own.
Planning golf in Kodaikanal
Kodaikanal Golf Club is a private 18-hole hill course founded in 1895. Before arranging a trip, confirm eligibility, handicap requirements, introductions, fees and tee times directly with the club.
The Dunnottar provides accommodation, not access to the course.
Once golf is confirmed, the Bungalow Manager can help with local taxis and practical arrangements. The Whole Bungalow gives a group five ensuite bedrooms, common living and dining rooms, one-acre grounds and one private house to return to after the round.
For the practical guide, see Golf in Kodaikanal: Planning a Stay Near Kodaikanal Golf Club. For small groups, see A Golf Weekend in Kodaikanal for Four to Six Players.
Stay together at The Whole Bungalow. Read the house’s history in Our Story, or plan the journey with How to Get Here.
For availability, contact The Dunnottar — WhatsApp: +91 98400 99939, Email: info@thedunnottarkodai.in. When enquiring, include the full group size, number of golfers and whether playing access has already been confirmed.
Play in the morning. Return to one house by the lake.
Kodaikanal Golf Club controls playing access, tee times and charges. Once your golf arrangements are confirmed, The Dunnottar provides one house by Kodaikanal Lake for golfers, friends and family.
