Posted Monday, November 15, 2004; 21:00 HKT
At 2,650 m above sea level, the Gulmarg Golf Club in Kashmir is among the world's highest golf courses, and it may just be the most beautiful. The British built the first 6-hole course here in 1890. By the 1920s, the splendor of this mountain setting was so famous that two 18-hole courses and a 9-hole course were added. Today, play takes place on a single 18-hole course, with the land rising and falling wildly all the way from tee-off to clubhouse. Buried under snow for three months of the year, the turf is wondrously soft, and balls fly faster in the rarified air. The trouble, of course, is that the club is located in a war zone—territory claimed by both Pakistan and India. Still, there's one benefit to Gulmarg's misfortune: you're quite likely to have the course to yourself.

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