Golf With An Attitude

After a thirty-year hiatus, the Afghan Open is back. Don't jingle the change in your pocket, because golf hooligans will be dealt with severely:

At a resort that became a battlefield, Afghans teed off on Friday in their country's first open golf tournament in more than 30 years.

As is still the way in Afghanistan, the first shot of the day at the Kabul Golf Club went to the local militia commander, applauded by his men with shouldered Kalashnikovs.

But organisers say they hope their tournament, contested by 40 local caddies in a picturesque valley just outside the capital, will help bring a new era in which the only risks are from golf balls, not bullets, flying down the fairways.

The club describes itself as the best and only course in Afghanistan and promises "golf with an attitude".

Hazards are unorthodox, from the bombed out club house below the dramatic first tee on a ledge high up the valley, to the odd spent shell or scurrying lizard. Club pro Mohammad Nazir Popal insists there is no danger, even though the nine-hole course became a battlefield in the 1990s.