Stuck in the Rough.(International Edition; SPECIAL REPORT: TRAVEL)(golf courses in conflict states)

Byline: Jerry Guo and Alaina Varvaloucas

Bunkers are a breeze next to the land mines and stray bullets that mar the world's most dangerous golf courses.

Anyone who finds the old course at St. Andrews challenging--with its mine-free greens and minimal risk of a civil uprising--probably wouldn't enjoy golfing in Baghdad or Kabul. But for a select group of thrill-seekers willing to add sniper fire and house arrest to the more traditional hazards associated with a round of golf, there is a handful of courses tucked away amid the poverty and chaos of the world's failed or post-conflict states. Some are little more than dusty plots where the mortar blasts have barely been patched up, while others shine as oases of luxury that stand in sharp contrast to the desperation outside their well-guarded gates. Since most of these courses do not receive many foreign guests, playing them is less about whom you know than how you are going to get there.

Between the two of us, we've been to links in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Colombia, and hope someday to try the courses in Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These countries may top the rankings for violence, repression and poverty, but they also boast a class of elites eager to pick up the booming sport. As much as these resorts promise refuge from the outside world, they inevitably reflect the political drama of their countries.

Take the Bogota Country Club, Colombia's most exclusive golf course. Because of security concerns--drug smuggling, kidnappings, bombings--no one is allowed even to tour the place without written consent from the manager. It is rumored that even the Japanese ambassador couldn't gain membership because he didn't have the requisite three references from existing members. The numerous guards who patrol the premises serve as an unpleasant reminder of the country's precarious political situation as a democracy that has been immersed in a low-level civil war for years, with guerrillas and narcotraffickers still operating in some quarters.

Halfway across the ...