"So despite mortar shelling elsewhere, golf goes on."

Edward Wong files a positive NYT piece about the state of golf, it just happens to be in the Kachin war zone where the senior officers of the Kachin Independence Army defending northern Myanmar use the game to relax. Thanks to all the readers who sent this one in.

A 17-year cease-fire with Myanmar ended in June, and the military is now pushing the Kachin deeper into the hills. About 70,000 villagers have fled. The Kachin army still holds Laiza, the capital of the Kachin autonomous region, where the generals have established a command center on a hotel’s fourth floor. So despite mortar shelling elsewhere, golf goes on.

General Gun Maw got the idea for building a golf course here, on the banks of a river that forms the border, after he traveled to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, for a national conference in 2004 to discuss reconciliation with the Myanmar government. A handful golfed for the first time at the invitation of Burmese officials.

“Instead of getting real political results, we learned to play golf,” said a Kachin spokesman, Kumhtat La Nan, 46, who also attended the conference.

Golf has a history in Myanmar, formerly Burma. In cities and large towns, it is common to find courses where the elite play. Yangon has a 36-hole course, and in the Burmese-controlled half of Kachin State there are courses in the town of Bhamo and the state capital, Myitkyina.

The course at Laiza was designed by Nay Min, a prominent Indian Burmese golfer living in Myitkyina. A village once stood on the site, erased in 1991 by floods and landslides. A white concrete memorial to the victims stands at the fifth hole.

Here's a nice accompaniment video to the story...