Course Review - DLF Golf and Country Club & Riviera Country Club

The last event on the European tour, before a month-long gap sees the DLF Golf & Country Club in Gurgaon, 30kms south of India’s capital city, New Delhi hosting the third playing of the Avantha Masters - only the fourth time the tour has visited India. This beautiful Arnold Palmer designed course has the rugged Aravali mountain range as a backdrop, and is a past winner of the Best Course in the sub-Continent title.

The rolling fairways and greens of the 6600m par 72 layout boasts five lakes, a scattering of waterfalls and more than 14,000 specially planted trees. Palmer’s design philosophy is always to give the player a course where good shots are rewarded and bad shots are reproached to encourage the golfer to try harder. In keeping with that, DLF Country Club is a perfectly manicured parkland style golf course that offers a great blend of risk and reward holes. Club members and their guests watching from the majestic colonial-style clubhouse overlooking the 18th green will be hoping that India’s SSP Chowrasia can pull off a repeat of last year’s victory on home soil.

This week the PGA Tour moves to Riviera Country Club in the affluent southern California suburb of Pacific Palisades for the Northern Trust Open, originally the LA Open and dating back to 1926 when the $10,000 purse was the richest in professional golf. Riviera’s Equestrian Centre hosted the dressage competition and the riding section of the modern pentathlon at the 1932 Olympics.

The club’s golf course was designed by George C Thomas with a helping hand from icon Dr Alister MacKenzie and William Bell. All-time great Ben Hogan had three s and two second places here in the 1940’s prompting the nickname of Hogan’s Alley for this picturesque layout that meanders along the Santa Monica Canyon. The tee on the first hole is 25m above the fairway of the reachable par 5, but trouble lurks with OB left and trees on the right. The 285m par 4 10th is driveable for the longer hitters, but a narrow green with great bunkering gives the hole teeth. The 18th is a unique and instantly recognisable finishing hole with a kidney-shaped green nestling in a natural amphitheatre.

Golfweather Editorial