Royal Liverpool’s John Heggarty visits Kazakhstan

In a fantasy world they gave us Borat. In the real world

we gave them Royal Liverpool’s Head PGA Professional, John Heggarty. Why? All will be revealed… What is the link between The Open Championship at

Hoylake in 2006 and golf in Kazakhstan? At the end of August 2009, at the request of Tony Bennett,

Director of Education for the PGA’s of Europe, I was asked vwto visit Kazakhstan to help develop the national golf programmes there. On the 19th of October I set of with some excitement and,

if I am being honest, a degree of trepidation, to a country which stretches for 2500km East to West and 1500 km North to South. It has an area of 2,669800 sq km which covers two time zones and is as big as Western Europe. I had done a little research but was still pretty unsure what awaited me on my arrival. My uncertainty was not helped

when I was met at Almaty airport at 4.00am by a leather coated, non-English speaking Khazak who stood at the entrance to the arrivals next to a trench coated soldier with a Kalashnikov rifle over his shoulder. Setting off in his van on a 45minute journey to my hotel, which was located near the once capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, hand signals were the only means of communication. We arrived at what was called the Sanatorium (I am reliably informed that this loosely translates as “health spa”). In its heyday the hotel was used by the Russian Politburo

as a getaway from Moscow. That night it was in complete darkness except for a single light on the reception desk. After a short rest and change of clothes I was collected and taken to a golf course for a meeting with representatives of the Kazakhstan Golf Federation. Here I was fully briefed on the development of golf in Kazakhstan.

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