The students can also earn about $3 a game caddying for foreigners. But Hashem, 19, harbors grander ambitions, fueled in part by glossy golf magazines, filled with photos of Tiger Woods, that foreign players have shown him.
"I want to become a champion like him, so I can make Afghanistan famous," Hashem said. Last November he got off to a promising start, winning third place in the club's first tournament in nearly 30 years. It was only open to Afghans.
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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During a recent lesson, though, Hashem was in less than perfect form.
"This ball has just decided not to move," he grumbled after three unsuccessful swings drew chuckles from his classmates.
Other students said they had never heard of golf until they happened to pass by the course.
"The game seemed interesting and I wanted to try it," said Sayed Mohammed, 20, who started his lessons with Abdul seven months ago. Soon, he said, he was hooked. He leaves his village before dawn to walk 40 minutes to the course.
Abdul's initiation to golf came in the early 1970s. As a teenager on a family outing to nearby Kharga Lake, he was strolling by the Kabul club when he saw a foreign man whack a tiny plastic ball with an odd-looking stick.
"I was staring at him when he looked at me and said in broken Dari, 'Do you want to try?' "
After that day's lesson, the man, a U.S. diplomat, offered to buy Abdul golfing clothes and teach him the sport if he came to the course every Sunday and Friday.
Some months later, the club held a tournament. Abdul won first place, taking home the first of a series of golf trophies that remain his most treasured possessions.
Impressed, the club managers offered him the job of caddy master, then deputy director.
Back then, the grounds were smooth and green, he said, and golfers capped their games with a round of whisky on the terrace of the elegant white clubhouse.
The members were mostly U.S. or British diplomats, along with a smattering of elite Afghans including Ahmad Zahir, a soulful singer revered even today as "Afghan Elvis." He was one of Abdul's favorite students.
"He was always a little drunk, but he played golf well," Abdul said with a grin. "And he would start singing while he was on the fairway. Then the other members would cheer and urge him on."
