Gerard Lobo's post
Bombay Presidency Golf Club in colonial era
Summarised by AI from the post below
This elegant sepia photograph captures the clubhouse and manicured greens of the **Bombay Presidency Golf Club (BPGC)** at Chembur during the late colonial era, when the sport of golf in India was closely tied to the social world of the British Empire. The image reflects a quieter Bombay — long before Chembur became part of the sprawling metropolis of modern Mumbai — when the eastern suburbs were still dotted with coconut groves, bungalows, marshland, and open countryside.
The origins of the Bombay Presidency Golf Club date back to **1927**, when a group of British businessmen, military officers, and civil administrators sought to establish a premier golf course in Bombay comparable to the great colonial clubs of Calcutta, Madras, and Bangalore. It was originally founded at Sewree on approximately 100 acres of reclaimed land belonging to the Bombay Port Trust.
The move to Chembur transformed the club. What had once been semi-rural land on the outskirts of Bombay became home to one of India’s most distinguished golf courses. Designed in the style of classic British parkland courses, the grounds combined broad fairways, tropical vegetation, and carefully landscaped greens suited to Bombay’s humid coastal climate.
The clubhouse seen in the photograph reflects colonial architectural influences adapted to India:
• deep shaded verandas,
• sloping tiled roofs for monsoon rains,
• high ceilings for ventilation,
• wide open lawns that merged the aesthetics of an English country club with tropical surroundings.
In the early decades, the club primarily served European residents of Bombay Presidency — hence its name — though over time Indian industrialists, professionals, and sporting enthusiasts also became members. By the 1930s and 1940s, golf in Bombay had begun to evolve from an exclusive colonial pastime into a broader social and sporting institution.
The setting of Chembur itself was significant. Before post-independence industrialisation transformed the eastern suburbs, the area was known for its open spaces and relative isolation from the dense commercial districts of South Bombay. The golf club offered members an escape from the crowded city — a place of leisure, sport, and social gatherings beneath swaying palms and tropical skies.
After Indian independence in 1947, the club entered a new chapter. It gradually shed much of its colonial identity while retaining its historic character and traditions. Today, the Bombay Presidency Golf Club remains one of India’s oldest and most prestigious golf institutions, surrounded not by open countryside but by the dense urban landscape of modern Mumbai.
This photograph preserves a rare glimpse into an earlier Bombay — a city where steam trains, colonial clubs, and palm-lined fairways coexisted in a world now largely vanished.
Clubhouse in 2015
