101st opens golf course outside Mosul
If there is a God, I will be playing golf on Saturday. The fairways will be green, the greens will be soft, and my drives will be straight and long. The same probably couldn't be said about the TPC at Mosul (that's Iraq, y'all)....
The days can be long and hard at the Qayyarah West Airfield in northern Iraq, full of dust and camel spiders.
And what relaxes a person after a hot sweaty day better than "The TPC at Mosul South Course," the first golf course in Iraq?
1st Lt. Jesse White, shop officer, Bravo Company, 426th Forward Support Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, created the course in May. In an area full of waist-high dirt piles and holes big enough to fall into, White made a course 150 yards long with just one hole. His idea was to have a place where he could relax and get in a few practice swings when possible.
But one hole wasn't enough. Soon other people wanted to play, and for that more holes would be needed.
"As it turned out, the new battalion commander was a golfer," White said. "He asked me what the chances were of expanding it."
The chances were good. Soon two more holes were added to the makeshift course. Then, after less then a month, three more holes were added, to make the course a total of six holes, "ranging from 50 to 250 yards," White said.
It was there that construction halted, only because they ran out of room.
"We'd like to add three more holes but we're out of space, if you can believe that out in the desert," White quipped.
As for it being the first course in the country, White claimed to have looked on the Internet to find others.
"I researched it, and as far as I know it's the only golf course in Iraq," he said.
The golf clubs and balls have been scrounged from many sources: people's personal collections as well as donations from places back in America. Of the equipment, 25 clubs and a few flags were donated from a country club in Signal Mountain, Tenn., where the battalion commander's father is a member.
Besides clubs they also donated "a whole lot of golf balls because we easily lose those things," said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kelley, 426th Forward Support Battalion commander.
Kelley plays at the "TPC (Tournament Players Club) at Mosul South Course" every Saturday at 6:30 a.m. Along with people from all over Q-West airfield who enjoy playing a short game.
Hey, it's not Augusta National, but golfers are a hardy (and often desperate) lot. It's nice to know that there is at least something in Iraq for our troops that feels familiar. Of course, where I play, there aren't minefields out of bounds....
