Karnataka

It wasn’t until 1986, thirteen years after a golf course was first proposed for the Karnataka Golf Association, that a 9-hole layout was established on a 124-acre site in Challaghatta, close to Bangalore’s city centre. Within three years, another nine holes were set out and the full 18-hole Karnataka championship layout made available to members.

The most difficult hole on the course arrives at the long, par four 7th, where water cuts across the fairway and deep bunkers guard the fairway landing area and the large putting surface. It’s followed by the signature hole at Karnataka, the par three 8th, which plays to a green that’s protected to the front and left by a large lake.

The course once suffered badly during the monsoon season but after an extensive upgrade in 2008 by Swan Golf Design when tees, bunkers and greens were modified, the course has never been closed to flooding since.

Until 2012, the Indian Open had never been held outside New Delhi or Kolkata but that sequence was broken when Karnataka Golf Association hosted the 49th edition of the prestigious event that year. Thaworn Wiratchant from Thailand, who won the Open seven years previously, claimed his second victory in the competition with an aggregate score of 268 (14 under par) when he beat Scotsman Richie Ramsay in a playoff.