Iranian Women's Dress Code Is Modest but Golf Friendly (photo of women playing golf)

NYT ^ | 07/05/05 | NEIL MacFARQUHAR

[TigerLikesRooster]

July 5, 2005

Iranian Women's Dress Code Is Modest but Golf Friendly

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

TEHRAN - The ban on women at Tehran's lone golf course proved superfluous for a couple of decades after the Islamic revolution owing to one simple fact: women found it basically impossible to swing a golf club while enveloped in yards of billowing cloth.

But as the laws demanding modest dress eased in recent years to allow minimalist head scarves and body-hugging tunics, women have begun venturing onto the fairways now open to them. Don't imagine, however, that golf here exactly matches the game elsewhere - not least because of the strong official sentiment ever since the revolution in 1979 that aping the West constitutes a sin.

You know you are playing golf in the Islamic Republic when:

1. The rule book starts, "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate."

2. There are only a dozen holes. Tehran's only golf course used to have the regulation 18 holes, but 6 were considered such prime real estate that the Revolutionary Guards confiscated them to build office blocks and residential complexes.

3. "Referees" are dispatched with nearly every golf party because players prefer to cheat rather than scavenge for their balls in the high grass, deep fissures and drifts of trash on the unkempt fairways.

4. Perhaps most surprisingly given the obstacles they face, most of the players on any given day are fit young women from 16 to 30, whose other activities include things like fencing for the national team.

James Hill for The New York Times

Iranian women - physical education students from Alzahra University - working on their game at the Enghelab golf course in Tehran.

[RichInOC]

"Referees" are dispatched with nearly every golf party because players prefer to cheat rather than scavenge for their balls in the high grass, deep fissures and drifts of trash on the unkempt fairways.

I didn't realize Bill Clinton had been such an influence on Iranian golf. Who knew?

[martin_fierro]

One can really lay down a mean bass line in one of those things, too.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Golf clubs can be powerful weapon against security forces.:-)

[MarineBrat]

Look at all those ball markers. Are they playing a "ninesome?"

[SevenofNine]

Rock on Sister

[Brilliant]

I can see their faces. Might as well be naked.

[HereInTheHeartland]

There has to be a good "Get Smart" joke in there somewhere.

[HighWheeler]

And who leaves a 2" putt with a marker???

[claudiustg]

---I can see their faces. Might as well be naked.---

It makes the heart race, does it not? :^)

[ken5050]

well,there are probably more heterosexual females in that pic than in the clubhouse during an LPGA tourney..

[Rebelbase]

I'm gonna throw a blanket over me and see how well I can play the bass.

Back in a bit.

[martin_fierro]

So...?

How'd it go?

[wingnutx]

When Joan Jett played for the troops in Afghanistan a few years ago, she came out in a burkha and then ripped it off.

[martin_fierro]

LOL

'atta girl.

[TBall]

"well,there are probably more heterosexual females in that pic than in the clubhouse during an LPGA tourney.." Now that was really funny, yet true.