POKHARA Area

The Himalayan Golf Club: Jewel in the Super Bowl! Built along-side the Bijayapur River which meanders way below through this ‘Super Bowl of Patan’ – a huge hundred-meter deep gorge-theatre with vertical walls a hundred-meter apart at points, The Himalayan ranks as one of the most interesting and hardest if not unique in feature by many golf reviewers! The course starts with the tame first two holes on flat beside the club house; good for a quick warm up. The next t-box however sits at the very edge of the cliff and commands a majestic view of the entire theatre with greens of the various holes down under dotting both sides of the river giving an impression that one could perhaps easily course-manage from such a vantage point! The Par-4 third tees off to the fairway some three quarters of the way down the bowl and the less than roller-coaster-smooth ‘magical mystery tour’ down and up and, down and up…the various levels of play begins! (NO buggies!) Some regard Hole-6 with an island green as the most special, but a day with Club senior officials, the two retired Gurkha Majors of the British Army and B Gurung, on their Annual Club Championship Day convinces that it is the ‘magical mystery tour’ feature of the course that more characterizes rather than the mere ruggedness of the surrounding – that the course is physically and technically more demanding is a foregone conclusion. Good judgement for distance in different elevations (and therefore the correct selection of clubs, hopefully) is absolute! Good ball control skill will help much in placing on the wide, sloping and border less fairways as well as keeping the ball on the relatively small but as much curvy and often with island-in-the-air greens. The play at the bottom of this big bowl ends at the 15th. following which a walk-up on sharp climb to the 16th. will likely ‘take one’s breath away’. Deliberate or otherwise, here’s a little mischievous in course design: Most players would normally t-off on reaching and likely forgetting that one should preferably insistently do it well after ‘catching the breath back’; chances are as a result judgement and swing would likely be less than satisfactory, what more with cliff-drop on one side all the way to the small green of albeit only a Par-3 hole, it’s no less confidence-testing than the much touted island green of

Hole 6! The general wisdom is not to let the ‘back biting’ flight push you when you get to the t-box…even if it was only a pack of holy cows! If not it may be a bit difficult to ‘think straight’ on a less than leveled t-box while gasping for more of the oxygen-less air for an otherwise a simple straight shot to the green. By the way most greens are protected by light and low barbed-wire fence to keep the cows away; you’ll never be more alert with flight path control until here and…perhaps be enlightened that there are more out there who also know where greener pastures exist! If you get the chance to do it, the jewel’s yours!

Yeti Golf Club: Jewel in the Air?

Whereas in the other course in Pokhara, the course snakes down into a ‘huge bowl’, golf at this 9-hole course gives the feeling of golfing in the air as the course goes along side the edge of a cliff with the other side sunken some three to four hundred feet down!What you get playing here you will probably get anywhere else as most of the entire course is flat but what you experience here you will likely not get it anywhere else. With the snow-capped range of mountain on one side and the ‘sunken other side of the world’ on the other, the view of the entire surrounding is simply breath-taking – that of golfing in mid-air!The Signature Hole has to be the one in the photo where the tee-box is at the edge of the cliff on one side and the green of the Par-4 is at the other some 350 yards away with a seemingly bottomless void in between. Likely most would not make to the small green for an Eagle; there’s however a landing area for the T-shot some yards before the green but it still looks very threatening being also at cliff-edge.