The RCGC course on Saturday morning. Picture by Aranya Sen; (below) golfer Irina Brar at the club

There?s a buzz about the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) greens these days. Speak to club loyalists or morning golfers and they tell you how the greens should soon be the best in the club?s 175-year-old history.

Subhro Saha spoke to golf course architect Ranjit Nanda, who is anchoring the upgrade...

On the need for an upgrade...

The vast advancement in playing equipment and in golf course maintenance and management across the globe has necessitated the modernisation. It?s a wonderful challenge to work on the world?s second oldest golf course. The design brief from the club committee was to upgrade RCGC to contemporary world standards in a phased manner.

On the basic changes planned...

We have looked at improvements keeping the traditional character and basic layout intact. There are some functional changes in the routing, in keeping with contemporary golf course design requirements.

Ideally, the starting and finishing holes should be in close proximity to the clubhouse. For this, there was a need to create a new hub for these main functions so that the 1st tee, the 10th tee, the 9th and 18th greens as well as the practice area/practice greens could be located as close to the golfing hub as possible.

This necessitated planning a new Starter Hut that would be the hub for the main golfing activities and include all the functional aspects ? changing rooms, lockers, refreshments, etc.

There was a need to reduce the walks from some greens to tees, especially from the old 1st green to the old 2nd tee. By creating a new no. 1 hole from the new hub area and using land that was earlier lying idle, a new strategic dogleg par 4 has been carved out. This will result in a much shorter walk from the green to the 2nd tees. Another change in this context was to revive the old 2nd hole, an interesting par 3. This fits into the scheme and flow of the routing nicely.

On the benefits of the upgrade effort...

This would allow the much-needed expansion of the existing main clubhouse building, especially adding a new block for accommodation. Besides, there would still be the flexibility to use the current 1st as an extra starting hole, or an extra driving range or even for future expansion. Moreover, the 18th green, in keeping with the traditional finish, would continue to be in the same location, in front of the old shamiana.

On the technical improvements...

Over the years, cow-grass, which we consider a dangerous weed, had invaded the entire course, overshadowing the dormant Bermuda below it. The priority on the fairways was to get the Bermuda back and, accordingly, take up removal of cow-grass from the central fairway strip. This was started in 2005 and as it has proved successful, the programme will be extended to the entire fairways during 2006. We should have the best fairways in the country in the not too distant future.

On the strategic changes...

With the improvement in technology in golf equipment, particularly clubs and balls, we found that many of the hazards and waterbodies were not coming into play. There was a need to improve hole strategy by bringing some of the water tanks into play and also using the same to improve drainage during the monsoons.

The fairways at RCGC had heavy soil underneath and became soggy and unplayable during the monsoons. To overcome this, an aeration programme was teed off in 2005 and the benefits of this will be evident in a couple of seasons.

When we analysed the greens, we saw large-scale contamination with many different ?off-type? grasses on each green. Maintaining these different grasses was very difficult as each had its own peculiar growth habits and as a result, there was a need to redesign and re-establish newer, contemporary-standard hybrid turf grasses on the greens.

In order to have adequate quantity of grass to transplant on to greens, tees and fairways, nurseries had to be developed on the driving range, new 1st hole and the old 2nd hole. To showcase the proposed new look of the golf course, a sample hole, the old 2nd hole, was revived and planted with appropriate hybrid turf grasses and the bunkers filled after installing drainage, with the finest available white silica sand.

These minimum standards are envisaged during improvement of the course in future.

When undertaking design studies of the greens, we found that the contours of the green surrounds were not blending with the greens or the existing fairway slopes. These were also inconvenient to maintain with modern, sophisticated ride-on turf grass machinery.

In a classic traditional course such as RCGC, we felt the need to re-establish bold flowing contour lines in keeping with the scale of the course and proper tie-in with surrounds. The golf holes needed some framing with strategically placed bunkers and water hazards and there was a need do get obsolete waterbodies more into play.

This is part of the long-term up-grade plan of which 10 greens have been taken up in 2006. The re-design of the greens, their sizes, slopes have been considered keeping the challenge of various skill levels as well as ease of future maintenance practices in mind.

On whether upgrade will increase the challenge...

It is proposed that some of the holes will be lengthened again for the sake of strategy and challenge to the more skilled, champion-level players. However, for the club-level golfer, who we consider the backbone of the game, the design of the greens will provide a larger target and continue to be as much part of the fun, challenge and recreation they are looking for. For the better player, there will be adequate ?risk-reward? opportunities and the need for precision play.

On how the upgraded RCGC course will rate...

The upgraded RCGC will emerge as a truly top-ranked championship golf course in the region, a status it deserves and we are hopeful this will happen within the next couple of seasons.