india Getting Served in Delhi

Will this be the year that the Delhi Development Authority finally breaks ground on its third golf course?

DDA Dwarka Golf Course, the first “international-standard” track in metropolitan New Delhi, is having a better-late-than-never moment. The Phil Ryan-designed course was originally supposed to open in 2012, but municipal agencies in India have never been described as models of efficiency.

The 7,208-yard course is to be built on 170 acres in Dwarka, a DDA-designed mini-city that’s rapidly spreading houses, shopping areas, office space, and even a “diplomatic enclave” over more than 14,000 acres. Ryan, the principal of Victoria, Australia-based Pacific Coast Design, has also agreed to provide the community with a nine-hole, par-3 course and a lighted golf academy.

New Millennium Company, the development company Ryan is working with, was awarded the contract to build the course in 2008. Ryan says he hasn’t been told when construction will begin, but he notes that “it would be a major issue for it not to go ahead as planned,” seeing as how the land has been allocated and the project approved.

Ryan and New Millennium have already built one golf course in India, an 18-hole track at Oxford Golf & Country Club in Pune, and they’re hoping to build another at Tourism City in Jaipur.

With other developers, Ryan has designed at least four other courses in India, including Eagleton Golf Village in suburban Bangalore, Poona Golf Club in Pune, and JW Golf Club in Mysore.

The DDA, which controls 70,000 acres in and around New Delhi, opened its first golf property, Qutub Golf Course, in 2002. These days it’s also at work on Bhalaswa Golf Course, which opened three holes in 2003 and currently has six. Bhalaswa is expected to eventually become a full 18, but the DDA doesn’t appear to be in much of a hurry to complete it.

Some information in this post originally appeared in the February 2012 and November 2010 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.