The Avantha Masters

While at the gym yesterday, I finished a Scottish Premiere League game (Celtic, as you would expect with their awesome green and white horizontal striped jerseys, prevailed; by the way, soccer is an excellent sport to watch while running on a treadmill as it completely takes my mind from the actual running) and found a live golf tournament, which turned out to be this week’s European PGA Tour event, the Avantha Masters.  I watched for a couple minutes and thought to myself, “those buildings under construction in the background look a little familiar.” Two minutes later they flashed the name of the course, DLF Golf and Country Club, which is the course located about a five to ten minute walk up Golf Course Road from the entrance to our apartment complex. Like most golf tournaments, it had begun on Thursday  yet I had no knowledge that it was taking place.

After seeing the tournament on TV, I tried to see if there was any way I would have known this by driving past the club. On the way to a party last night I was able to strain to see a small sign indicating that the tournament was taking place. While I can understand there being minimal broad-based advertising based on the lack of appeal and history in golf here by the general populace, I found it odd that DLF, which is the development company that owns the golf club and has developed much of Gurgaon including the commercial park where my office is located, didn’t place any signage in the office buildings. What makes this odd is that DLF isn’t one to shy away from self-promotion. DLF, from all appearances is kind of like George Foreman who named all his kids George, has named parts of the city after itself; when Lindsay goes to her bagel shop, she tells the driver, “Bagel’s Café, The Shopping Mall on Arjun Marg, in DLF City, Phase 1”.  And let’s just say there’s more than one phase.