Royal Springs Golf Course

Royal Springs is Kashmir's best-documented golf destination: an 18-hole championship course (par 72, 6,985 yards from the back tees) designed by Robert Trent Jones II, opened in 2001 on a hillside near Chashme Shahi overlooking Dal Lake in Srinagar. It has been managed by the J&K Tourism Development Corporation (a quasi-government body) and is open to the public on a pay-and-play basis — Kashmir Age described it in February 2026 as running on a "play-and-pay model" — with advance booking advised. It is simultaneously a membership club: the same report gives 532 members against a sanctioned 1,000, with about 250 applications pending since 2019. On the outsourcing question, the picture is clearer than it was but still not closed. In March 2023 the JKTDC managing director wrote to the Royal Springs secretary about outsourcing the course in PPP mode, and it was named on a list of tourism assets to be handed out; the exercise was reported as due to conclude by mid-2024. Nothing found shows it completed. JKTDC's own live tender listing runs to June 2026 and carries no Royal Springs tender; and every dated 2026 source still describes the course as government-run — J&K Tourism was the title partner and the Government of J&K a host of the August 2026 J&K Open here, and the "Royal Springs Golf Course Board" is the body reported approving a membership drive. The honest reading: outsourcing was proposed in 2023 and there is no evidence it happened, but no source explicitly says it was dropped — the question stays open. The course is clearly alive, with three independent dated 2026 signals: a February 2026 Kashmir Age feature on the course itself; the DP World PGTI announcement (29 July 2026) of the J&K Open played here 4–7 August 2026; and an August 2026 Kashmir Age report of the DP World India Championship Lotus Trophy being unveiled at the course. The only recent price signal is a tour operator's "₹1,000–2,000 per round" (page modified September 2025), which is indicative at best — the operator itself, JKTDC, publishes no green fee on either of its golf pages, and where2golf says only "contact club for green fee details". A discount-card site advertises "green fee from INR 4,000", which conflicts with the rest and is best not relied on. The course's own domain (royalspringsgolfcourse.in) no longer resolves; the where2golf phone number is the most plausible contact, and an Instagram account (@rsgc_official) exists. One further government-published route surfaced in August 2026: the Government of India's film- locations portal lists the course's managing agency as the Directorate of Tourism Kashmir (Tourist Reception Centre, Srinagar; 0194-2502512; dtk@jktourism.org) — an administrative contact rather than a booking desk, and one that names a different government arm than the JKTDC management line reported elsewhere; that discrepancy remains unresolved. No online tee-booking channel exists in any source found: booking remains by phone, in advance.