Kevin Pilley

The gentleman at the world’s third oldest club held out his golf balls and asked me how old I thought they were. I didn’t want to insult him and said, “About 100 years old?”.

He smiled his betel-stained smile, executed a textbook Indian head wobble and said they were 140 years old. “I’m very proud of them,” he said.

India is the second largest tea growing country in the word, behind China, and Assam’s 200 tea gardens provide a sixth of the total national production.

Tea was introduced into Assam – The Land of Red Deer and Blue Hills in north-east India close to the Chinese frontier – by Scotsman Alexander Bruce in 1823. The first Assamese black tea arrived in London 180 years ago

Although Guwahati (a two hour flight from Delhi) has the Tea Auction Centre, Jorhat is the tea capital of India and hosts the annual tea festival which feature much banging of tribal Dholo double-headed drums. And sampling of “Chai pani” (tea with water) and “Gakhir sah” (milky tea), But no sugar.

The tea pluckers themselves, mostly ladies and descendants of the so-called coolies (unskilled native labourers) brought in by the British from Orissa and Jakkarhand, prefer salt in their tea.

Jorhat Gymkhana, meaning ball court, was founded in 1856. The road to the clubhouse was north India’s first asphalt one. Pandit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, made a famous speech there in 1937.

The club is now shabby. But like all Indian golf clubs the hospitality is overwhelming. Jorhat GC hosts the Jorhat races every February. Amoto has been the barman for 56 years. And invented the club’s signature cocktail, called Ladies’ Fire, which is vodka and lemon squash with Tabasco and soda.

“In the good old days we had weekly film shows, sports days, dances and parties. And much fun. Drinking was a rational activity,” Amoto says, slightly confusingly.

A dusty cabinet showcases a menu offering chicken in aspic, salmon or jungle fowl.

A golf safari is a great way to see India, meet its people and understand its history and there are now over 200 golf courses.

Bombay (Mumbai) Presidency has a bunker which is an ex-elephant trapping pit. The club’s President's Putter was first contested in 1828 The ladies play annually for The Monsoon Cup.

In Kashmir, at 2700m, Gulmarg boasts the world’s highest grass course. Agra has a nine hole course built in 1904 where you can see the Taj Mahal from the sixth green. A round costs £10 and a caddie £3. You can also hire an uggawallah – a ball spotter/retriever. He’ll jump over a fence to fetch a beer or bottle water and bravely try and save you a shot.

And maybe a leg.

A lot of rough in India can sometimes rustle and occasionally hiss and growl. Crows and elephants can be a problem as well as cheetahs. And no golfer likes to play with one of them. At Delhi, its peacocks. I counted 26 on one hole. As well as Moghul concubine tombs.

One of my favourite courses is Udhagamandlam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. British soldiers brought in Scot pines and gorse to create in Oocamund (Ooty – the queen of hill stations) their own downland Home Counties course over Wenlock Downs, named after a Governor of Madras.

The 1842 Ooty Club (The Snooty Ooty) was the summer residence of the first Governor-General of India. Like many golf clubs around India, it remains a time capsule of gracious colonialism and, as one old boy member told me, “ a mausoleum for the living too”.

There are portraits of Churchill, Gandhi and the Queen, tiger skins on the polished teak floors, mounted munjac heads and photos of tiger hunts and Victorian ladies in bonnets and landaus and men in shorts and solar topis.

It reeks of the Raj. Beginners are kindly asked not to use the Bridge Room. Shepherd's pie and apple tart are the house specialities.

Snooker was allegedly invented in Ooty by Neville Chamberlain. Not the former Prime Minister, but an army officer who came up with idea of coloured balls.

Founded in 1829 and formerly called the Dum Dum Club (not because it was run by colonial idiots but because it was near the airport), Royal Calcutta is the oldest golf club in the world outside the U.K. It received Royal status from King George V in 1911.

Shillong in Meghalaya , was established in 1898 by British civil servants. It’s 40 miles from the world’s wettest place, Cherrepunji. At 594 yards, the sixth is the oldest longest hole in the country. I asked the caddie if it had a name. “Extremely tiring”, he replied.

There are plenty of very good modern Johnny-Come-Latelies. Like Greg Norman’s Jaypee Greens in Delhi. Pash India hosts the five-course annual Taj Mahal Trophy in March.

But , if you don’t think history is all balls and don’t mind “kachacha” NWBB (Nerve-Wracking Back-Breaking) dirt roads, Assam is the place. The best tea planters are Misa Polo Club (1988), Dibrugarh , Doom Dooma, Moran, and Marguerita.

Misa Polo Club, an hour south of the Brahmaputra River and Tezpur, is where the Scotsman Robert Bruce who introduced tea to Assam in 1823 is buried.

“When India fell into the rapacious clutches of you noxious imperialists everything changed," laughed Surendra Pawas, the club secretary and manager of Kellyden estate

“You Britishers brought in sugar tongs and sugar cubes, silver service, bridge, badminton, cricket, rugby, sailing, piano fortes, horned gramophones and, of course, golf clubs. Although not polo. Hockey on horseback originated in Manipur – one of Assam’s seven sister states.”

The Club afforded consolation for the pains of exile. It was a substitute for the comforts otherwise easily procurable at home. The clubhouse at Kazaringa Golf Resort which winds through the Sangsua and Gooanga Tea gardens near Johat, the tea capital, is the old “Burra Sahib” tea manager’s bungalow. There are eight villas on site.

In their “jhanpi hats” and “chupti” baskets , lady tea pluckers pluck away under shade tree covered in black pepper vines. Sometimes you have to wait for them to finish their tea break in the middle of the fairway. The pluckers never let you through.

At 7030 yards, the 2011 Kaziranga is the toughest course in Assam. Perhaps the whole of India. A green fee is £4 on weekdays and £6 at the weekend. Caddies cost £2 for eighteen. The course is busy if it has 20 players in one day.

It is owned by Heritage North-East which also runs nearby Banyan Grove (a tea estate bungalow) and classy Thengal Manor.

The heritage properties, with their four poster beds, fireplaces, gatekeeper, house stewards and table servants and miscellaneous “wallahs” are an excellent base – for golfers and Raj nostalgists – to explore tea country, the old Ranpour, Majuli – the world’s largest riverine island – and Kaziranga National Park, home of the world’s greatest density of one-horned rhinos.

India is a great golfing land. It teaches you the value of your balls.

Kevin Pilley flew to Assam with Jet Airways which flies daily from London Heathrow to Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata with connections to Guwahati (www.jetairways.com)

www.assamtourism.com/www.redrivertravels.com

www.heritagetourismindia.com

Double rooms at HNE properties, Jorhat are £70 a double per night continental plan/green fee at Kaziranga £6 plus £3 caddie. Cheaper weekdays.

Mancotta Heritage Chang Bungalow, Dibrugarh £112 double per night B&B www.purvidiscovery.com

Dibrugarh Club ( £27-40 per night per room) www. dibrugarhclubhous.com