Word: golfed
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Despite these inconveniences, golf Afghan-style is witnessing a boomlet. The nine-hole Kabul Golf Club boasts some 60 members, drawn mostly from the armies of aid workers and expatriate businessmen who have flooded the capital since the fall of the Taliban. The club's revival reflects Kabul's transformation, from a dusty no-man's-land to a bustling hub of commerce. Earlier this month the city opened its first five-star hotel; rooms start at $250 a night...
...Western tourists. After the U.S.S.R. invaded, its army dug in near the seventh hole, and the course became a battlefield, with mujahedin fighters attacking from the hills above. The Soviets arrested the local pro, Mohammed Afzal Abdul, for being a U.S. spy; his interrogators said it was because golf was such a capitalist, bourgeois sport. After fleeing to Pakistan, Afzal returned to Kabul shortly before the Taliban seized power. He tried to interest a few turbaned Taliban in the game, but he says, "They were only interested in shooting and whipping people...
After U.S. and Afghan troops toppled the Taliban in 2001, Afzal teamed up with McNeill, who, as a hobby from his relief work, helped restore golf courses in war-ravaged Rwanda and Georgia. "I thought we should leave a few of the rusted tanks and missile launchers out there on the fairways as a testament to history," McNeill says, "but Afzal said, 'No, it's time for a new chapter.'" Afzal cleared away land mines by borrowing a flock of sheep from a nomad and setting them loose on the course. A few were blown up, but Afzal's philosophy...
...running a golf club in Kabul is not easy. The club advises golfers to bring their own plastic mats and play shots off them. Artificial turf is something of a rarity in Afghanistan. So are tees and golf balls. The pro shop has a few sets of rental clubs that look as if they were donated by Fred Flintstone...
Although he once entertained dreams of becoming a pro golfer, Afzal is set on teaching a young generation of Afghans to swing a club. But in a country just emerging from two decades of war and tyranny, the game is still a tough sell. "Many Afghans think that golf is the devil's game," says McNeill. "Of course, many golfers would probably agree with that...