History
Originally six holes, the course opened in 1967 during the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah, was closed in 1978, and reopened in 2004. During these three decades it has undergone several changes. It was relocated to its present site in 1973 after the king was overthrown in a coup d'état and completely closed following a 1978 communist coup. It was reopened in 1993 but closed again in 1996 when the Taliban regime banned sports. After the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the course was used as an area for military training in the removal of land mines. In the process of restoration to its present state, three Soviet tanks and a multiple rocket launcher were removed by a nonprofit agency.
In 2004 the Kabul Golf Club was reopened again. During the intervening seven years little has changed. Play on the golf course has been sporadic, and at the mercy of the local security situation. Beginning in 2011, a fund-raising effort has been underway with the goal of restoring the golf course and related facilities. Funds are also being sought to subsidize operations until the war is over, assuming the organization will eventually become a viable business.
Read more about this topic: Kabul Golf Club
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
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—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)