Kabul Golf Club, Afganistan

Perhaps a different kind of luxury.

The Kabul Golf Club is a nine-hole golf course located near Kargha, around 7 miles from the center of Kabul, Afghanistan. Originally a six-hole golf club on the western outskirts of Kabul that catered to ambassadors and scions of the Afghan royal family, The Kabul Golf Club was reopened in 2004 by Mohammad Afzal Abdul. Kabul Golf Club, which is owned by the Afghan government, is a work in progress. Before it reopened it was a training ground for mine-removal teams. Most of the detritus of war - exploded bombs and shrapnel, hulking pieces of Soviet tanks and vehicles - has been removed. The irrigation pipes, which once brought water from the recently restored Karga Dam, were unearthed and destroyed by the Taliban, which for mysterious reasons banned almost all sports except volleyball. The original clubhouse, which still stands shakily next to the small dirt parking area, was shelled by the Taliban. Its walls are pock-marked by shrapnel. 

Handmade flagsticks fashioned with rebar and tattered swatches of fabric dot the course. There is no delineation between the fairways and the rough; the greens are "browns," a concoction of sand and oil packed with a heavy roller and smoothed with a makeshift broom. Golfers will be given a mat on which they can place their tees throughout most of the course. The course was designed to have conventional hazards, so water rules apply if the ball lands in the water hazard (albeit, there is no actual water) and you are not allowed to use your mat if you land in the sand trap. Caddies are paid five to 10 dollars and work in pairs to a player - one carries the clubs and a swatch of artificial turf for shots from the rocky fairways, and the other keeps an eye on the ball. The entrance fee for The Kabul Golf Club is $15 and a yearly membership fee is around $300.