Fore! The tale of Mohammad Afzal Abdul, Afghan golf pro

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know, not nearly enough attention has been paid to the impact of the war on terror on the world of golf. Yes, golf. But not the golfing world of Tiger, Phil, and Ernie -- not that crowd of high-priced talent, the prima donnas of the PGA tour. Rather, the golfing world in, of all places, Afghanistan.

There is only one golf club in Afghanistan, the Kabul Golf Club, and Mohammad Afzal Abdul is its pro, a dedicated pro with a nightmarish past: "Abdul says he has been jailed twice for playing golf: once in the early 1980s after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then again by the hardline Taliban government more than 10 years later," both times "accused of being a spy". And the difficult times continue:

"Even right now, I feel some danger," Abdul says in a dusty room, surrounded by donated clubs for hire and caps and t-shirts embroidered with the club logo for sale. "But I won't leave," he says.

"This is a place for fun and people need it. People always need to have a good time, even during war."

Abdul says he spent two months clearing the nine-hole course of military hardware that remained after the 1990s civil war between the commanders who had months earlier driven out the Soviet invaders.

"Everything was destroyed, there were tank tracks, guns and weapons," he says.

Then the Taliban built bases in the area and the golf course and the dam -- now one of Kabul's favourite picnic spots -- were abandoned.

Today it has been cleared of landmines, but it is still a bit of a wreck.

It is difficult to tell the fairways from the rough, and litter is caught in the stubs of scraggy, dry grass that cover only some of the dusty and stony ground.

A ragged trough runs through the course from the dam wall -- Abdul hoped to could bring in some water but there is no money for pipes.

But there are red flags fluttering at the "greens" -- which are actually black being made of compacted sand and oil, as is normal at desert courses -- and Abdul says he has a steady stream of players and students.

It's a pretty amazing story, actually, one of those indomitable-human-spirit stories, evidence that however much things may have gone wrong in Afghanistan over the years, from one horrendous regime to another, to a U.S.-led invasion and current NATO operation that haven't quite been as successful as they were meant to be, to the ongoing Taliban threat, a "national" government limited to Kabul, and continuing chaos in the countryside, mass opium production, bloody terrorism, and brutal warlordism, evidence that for all that, and more, life goes on, with one courageous golfer leading the way on the only links in town.