Green Zone golf: A course with real bunkers

AP writer Bradley Brooks prepares to tee off at the first hole of a golf course in the Green Zone in Baghdad on April 26.


Green Zone golf: A course with real bunkers
By Bradley Brooks - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday May 7, 2008 6:15:07 EDT

BAGHDAD — The weight of the 9-iron felt just right. My first swing off the first tee was smooth and the ball sailed straight and true.

For a brief moment, I forgot where I was. Then, I gazed down the fairway — actually just a few clumps of grass, scrub brush and plenty of rocks.

This is golf, Green Zone style.

One recent afternoon — squeezed in between sandstorms and incoming mortar rounds — a colleague and I hit the links. We dubbed it the Baghdad Open.

But there’s nothing really open about it. The nine-hole Crossed Swords Golf Course is closed in by 15-foot concrete blast walls and watched over by humorless Gurkha guards from Nepal.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_baghdad_golf_050608/