KABUL, Afghanistan, March 7 -- Never mind that the fairway was just a muddy hillside.
Or that the green was a patch of sand smoothed with black motor oil.
Afghan golf student Mohammed Hashem practices on the course of the Kabul Golf Club. The black patch in the distance is the green, which is actually made of sand mixed with motor oil.
(N.c. Aizenman -- The Washington Post)
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Mohammed Hashem prepared to tee off with all the concentration of his new hero, Tiger Woods.
"Check the condition of the ground first," warned his instructor, Mohammed Afzal Abdul.
It's an essential precaution on the rock-strewn links of the Kabul Golf Club, which reopened on the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital last spring after more than two decades of war and neglect.
Like the rest of the country, the government-owned course is something of a work in progress. Landscapers have dragged away most of the weapons and shrapnel that littered the grounds, though a rusted Russian tank still stands sentry atop one of several hills ringing the course. A large metal shipping container has been brought in to replace the old clubhouse, now a bombed-out shell.
Abdul, the club's director in addition to its pro, has also built a water hazard. Someday soon, he hopes to fill it with water.
The rough, at least, is world-class.
Despite the challenges posed by the nine-hole course, about 100 diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners paid a small fee to golf here last year. With the club's second season about to begin, Abdul, a slim, athletic-looking man in his forties, is keen to attract a larger crowd.
"If I could get funds from the Americans or maybe the British, I could put a fence all around the course to keep the foreigners safe," he said. "Then we will need a well, so we can grow grass, and plumbing so we can build a new clubhouse."
Still, he said, his priority was the roughly 50 Afghan students he has been teaching free all winter.
"I know they have a bright future in golf. And that makes me feel very happy," Abdul said.
His students, mostly college-age men, wear sneakers and green caddy vests pulled over the long tunics and billowing trousers traditionally worn by Afghans. They said they like golf because it allows them to exercise and unwind at the same time. But their thirst for leisure sometimes has deeper roots.
Mohammed Ayub, 23, left school at age 12 to work as a construction laborer after his father died and civil war forced his family to flee to Pakistan. Now, finally back in school as a 10th-grader, he is beginning to recover some of his lost youth.
