History
The history of golf in Russia began with the establishment the first golf club in Moscow. On 15 September 1987, the first stone of the first golf course in the USSR was placed by famous Swedish hockey player, former world champion Sven Tumba. The same day, Pelé, Tumba, Sean Connery and Alexander Ragulin made symbolic strokes with golf clubs. In 1988, at the Moscow City Golf Club (MCGC) on Dovzhenko Street, the first driving range was opened. And after two years of construction in the heart of Moscow, the first 9-hole golf course was opened and ready for play. In 1992, based from the MCGC, the Russian Golf Association was created. It is now recognized by the Russian Olympic Committee, the European Golf Association, and the supreme authority of golf – the Golf Club of St Andrews.
In 1994, the second golf course in Russia was built − the Moscow Country Club. In accordance with the ideas of the founders of the club, it became a highly-recognized golf course, and was the only 18-hole championship course in Russia for more than a decade.
Subsequently, golf started its development in other regions of Russia. The "Dunes" course was built near St. Petersburg, and another course was built in S. Oskol of the Belgorod region. At the same time, a training facility and a golf club were built in the Krylatskoye area of Moscow. Pitch and putt facilities also attracted interest among Russians. Such projects were created in a mini-golf club named "Green Tee" in the residential complex Pokrovskoe-Glebovo.
2004–2006 saw active construction of additional golf courses. The first of them to open in 2006, the 18-hole Pestovo golf and yacht club, immediately won the hearts of Russian golfers. Several more golf clubs are scheduled to open. An incomplete list of projects can be seen below.
Read more about this topic: Golf In Russia
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—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)