This war-weary nation’s only golf course is short on yards — but long on charm

Mention popular golf destinations, and Armenia doesn’t spring to mind. Most people who travel with their clubs would struggle to locate the country on a map. Even if they could identify it, golf would not likely be on the to-do list in a mountainous part of the world where history and geography have left little room for the game. Armenia has just one course, an unconventional 18-hole design that records just 3,000 rounds a year. 

That any rounds are played at all reflects the resilience of a course in a country that is known for the same trait. Sandwiched between Turkey and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus, Armenia has been wracked by geopolitics and ravaged by genocide. Ethnic cleansing in the early 20th century left millions of people dead, and the threat of attack from Azerbaijan has been a persistent post-war political reality. Given the country’s long standing challenges, golf barely registers with its residents. 

The lone outlet for the game, Ararat Valley Golf Club, sits in an eponymous valley, framed in the distance by Mt. Ararat, a snow-capped volcanic peak and national symbol where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest. When I pulled up to the club’s entrance this past October, I was struck by the grandeur of the backdrop but also by the property’s unassuming air.

Meeting my guide

It was my second trip to Armenia in a year. I’m a business journalist, and I’d been invited to cover the country’s growing startup ecosystem. Though I was hesitant to travel to a country that had lost territory weeks before my initial visit in 2023, I found comfort in another fact. Armenia is rated as the eighth-safest country in the world, according to a report from Numbeo. 

After learning about the course on my first visit, I was determined to see it in person. I’m an avid golfer and typically seek out courses wherever I am. En route to Armenia, I had a 24-hour stopover in Qatar, where I took the opportunity to play at the Doha Golf Club, home of the Qatar Masters. The course has a pristine layout that provided a stark contrast to what I experienced in my next round.  

Ararat Valley Golf Club is part of Vahakni Resort, a modest venue with a restaurant, pool, mini-golf course and newly installed pickleball courts. When I arrived in a Yandex Go, the Russian equivalent of an Uber, no golfers were in sight. The only immediate sign of life was the medium-sized dog that rushed up to confront me. A young man with a dark beard and athletic build emerged onto the deck of a small clubhouse and told me not to worry. Khach Vrtanesyan is the director of golf at Ararat Valley. His dog is Panchita, Spanish for “flop shot.”

If Ararat Valley is an unlikely course, Khach — pronounced hatch — is an improbable man to run it. Raised in a middle-class family, he still lives, at 25, with his parents, which is common in the country. His father, an accountant, and his mother, a finance officer, had bent over backward to provide opportunities for their only son. 

“My parents did everything for me to get a high-quality education, and they always wanted me to get an education abroad,” Khach told me.

He started college at American University of Armenia, in the capital city of Yerevan, where he earned a BA in business before enrolling in a program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Draper University, in San Mateo, Calif. After graduation, he landed an internship at Facebook.

But he passed on the offer. Silicon Valley life was not for him.

“I wanted to be with my family and friends. I had no one there,” Khach said. “I was alone, and I couldn’t be like that. I didn’t know if I’d l ever have friends there. Real friends, not people that I just know.” 

Armenians are known for their hospitality, and Khach is no exception. He radiates warmth.

Back home, Khach landed a job at the Central Bank of Armenia. But a governmental role was not where he wanted to be long term, so he returned to his roots, which happened to be in golf.

Khach had been a troubled child who struggled to concentrate. At age 13, his parents got him a therapist who suggested he try golf, which was peculiar advice, given the therapist’s scant awareness of the game. Khach later told me that the therapist had never so much as set foot on a golf course.  

Initially, Khach had no interest in the game. It struck him as dull and meaningless. But his parents were all in on the therapist’s advice and believed golf could be a way for their son to meet nice people. They took him to the driving range at Ararat Valley. For Khach, it was not love at first swing. But his parents persisted. One cool spring morning in 2013, they coaxed Khach into the car, telling him they were going for a drive in the country. They took him to the course instead.

This time around, Khach was introduced to course owner Vahak Hovnanian, a real estate developer and co-founder of Hovnanian Enterprises, a publicly traded American real estate company that operates in 14 states. Born in Iraq to Armenian parents, Hovanian had gotten hooked on golf as a kid in the United States. Among his many claims to fame was that he’d once played golf with Arnold Palmer. Like Palmer, he was a proselytizer for the game — and single-handedly responsible for bringing golf to Armenia. Seeing great promise for it in the Caucasus, Hovanian founded the National Golf Association of Armenia and served as the organization’s first president. He also purchased land and set out to build a country club in the model of an American residential community. Ararat Valley opened in 2005.

In their first meeting on the range, Hovnanian told Khach, “Take the club and dance with it.”  It was a 9-iron. Khach swung and caught the sweet spot.

“That feeling that you have in your hands,” Khach said. “Whatever I felt from that day, it was amazing. I was hooked by what I felt in my arms.”

He took to practicing tirelessly, particularly his short game. Hovnanian became his mentor until his death in 2015. Seven years later, Hovnanian’s son, Shant, put Khach in charge of the club, where he continues his mentor’s legacy of growing the game in Armenia.

Last year marked a record number of rounds at the resort, among other signs of swelling interest. One of the club’s Instagram reels, on ball position, received 27 million views, more than any post in the country. A breakthrough at the professional level helped as well. In February, Jean Bekirian, a 22-year-old, French-born Armenian with full status on the DP World Tour, made the cut at the Qatar Masters, becoming the first Armenian to do so on a professional tour. He followed that up with two more cuts made in April at the Abu Dhabi Challenge and UAE Challenge. In March, Bekirian toured Ararat Valley Golf Club and hosted a free golf clinic.

Precious commodity

It’s mid-morning, and Khach and I are on the range. He says that he does not play with every visitor, but he wants to show me the course. After asking for my handicap (I’m a 1.3) and watching me hit balls with the iron he’d handed me, he says, “Okay, let’s play.”

First, though, he takes me to the clubhouse to show me his personal golf club collection, an assortment that appears to be made up of anything he can get his hands on. I joke that not a single club must enter the country without him knowing. Golf equipment is difficult to obtain in Armenia, because no golf brands have representation in the country, and importing items through customs via Amazon is challenging. Khach says he buys single clubs when he travels.  

Khach is superstitious, as are many Armenians, and does not let anyone touch his clubs unless they possess an energy of which he approves. For single-digit players, the club keeps a couple of rental sets. But, Kach says, for “a 1.3 handicap like yourself, I would give my set.” 

After a brief search, he pulls out the only extra-stiff driver he can find: a pink-shafted Bubba Watson Ping G20. We walk across the range toward the 1st hole, a straightaway, uphill par-4.

Khach says he hasn’t slept since attending a birthday party of one of his workers in Gyumri, the country’s second-largest city, the night before. Gyumri is a two-hour drive from the capital of Yerevan, and the windy roads of Armenia’s mountainous backdrop can be unnerving. 

“Don’t worry,” I reply. “We are in the same boat.” 

Iranian rockets, fired at Israel, had delayed my travel by three days.

A golf cart unlike any other

When we arrive at the 1st tee, the course is empty, not unusual for a Tuesday, Khach says, especially on a day with rain in the forecast. Khach plays as often as he can but work keeps him busy. He has his hand in everything golf-related at the club, from giving lessons and keeping members’ handicaps to training and managing his 16-person staff. 

Being the only two people playing golf in an entire country is a special feeling. As Khach tees up, rain begins to fall. He assures me that Armenians are tough and that a little weather won’t interrupt our game. Off we go.

The 1st hole is short with a steep-rising fairway. I hit a great drive but airmail the green, amazed at how the ball soars at 3,245 feet of elevation. Khach hooks one into the native grass. Facing a terrible lie that many would declare unplayable, he sticks one to four feet and makes birdie. I can see that I am playing with a short-game savant. 

Ararat Valley is a hilly course with rocky terrain and a confusing par-68 layout. It was built at a time when few people in the country knew anything about golf. There are nine greens and 18 tee boxes. Conditions are scruffy. Large stones mark the holes with spray-painted hole numbers in Roman numerals. The bare fairways are fringed by thick native brush. Khach calls it mountain-desert-target golf.

After a few holes, Khach calls Shant, the owner. Moments later, a Mercedes drives straight out onto the hole we’re playing. Shant hops out and joins us. He has a handlebar mustache and swings with one-hand. As we play on, he drives his car from hole to hole.

Three-country view

While the course is less than 5,000 yards, the course record is a modest 67, held by a member. The club says it will host a tournament in honor of the golfer who breaks it. 

I am level par when I arrive at the 4th hole, a short, blind par-3 atop an embankment. Missing short is devastating, which is what I do, chunking one into oblivion. The course record is out of sight.

After nine holes, we head for the 19th hole. On the way, Shant says he has identified the perfect setting in Armenia, where he hopes to build another golf course someday. 

We arrive at his aptly named restaurant, The Beach, which has an all-sand floor reminiscent of something you might find in Miami or LA. It is empty on a Tuesday but Shant assures me that it draws a crowd on weekends.

From the balcony, Khach and Shant show me a cluster of modern homes that they are building in the distance, the beginnings of an upscale neighborhood called Vahakni, just outside the city center. They also point out the three countries we can view from the deck: Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

I sit with Khach at the bar and trade life stories. He tells me what it is like to live in a country that is constantly under threat of attack. He shares a painful, heartfelt tale of the impact the ongoing conflict has had on his family. In 2023, Armenia ceded the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Since Armenia is so small, everyone is affected by the war and knows someone directly impacted. 

When the time comes to leave, I reach for my wallet, but Khach won’t have it. Everything is complimentary, he says. 

International scramble

The next day, Khach invites me back to the club for a scramble match. Khach brings his girlfriend, Lilit, who is from Syria, and pairs me with a club member, Alex, a Russian who fled his country at the onset of the war with Ukraine. Many Russians view Armenia, a former Soviet territory, as a first point of refuge. Alex is part of a large influx.

He is a new golfer who first picked up a club while on vacation in Thailand in 2024. Before his round, he and his wife watched YouTube videos to learn how to hold a club.  

“Fortunately, the club let us on the course, and the mandatory caddies in Thailand helped us enjoy our first round,” Alex says. “Our score was terrible, but emotions were sky-high. We instantly fell in love with the game.”  

When Alex returned to Armenia, the country’s only course was closed for the winter. At their earliest opportunity, in March, he and his wife visited the club for the first time and took a lesson with Khach. Alex practiced every weekend and played more than 50 rounds in 2024. 

“Khach helped us build the foundation of our game and even assisted me in getting my first set of clubs,” Alex says.

Alex uses a circuitous method to acquire golf balls from Amazon. I make sure not to lose any.   

After a few holes, Khach, a 2-handicapper, hurts his shoulder and calls it quits for the day. He does not want to not worsen the injury before the upcoming Caucasus Cup, an annual tournament modeled after the Ryder Cup, played against neighboring Georgia. It is slated to be held at Ambassadori Golf Club, a more traditional golf venue than Khach’s home course. Khach notes that if you can play at Ararat Valley Golf Club, with its illogical layout, extreme elevation changes and tiny greens, you can play anywhere. I finish nine holes with Alex, and we return to the clubhouse. After two days, I have been embraced like a member of the club.

A few weeks later, Khach makes his match against Georgia, and he eagerly messages me news and a video of what transpires. In the clip, he is green-side in two on the par-5 final hole. Georgia is on the green in two and closes with a birdie. Khach needs an eagle to tie the match for Armenia and extend the tournament to the next day. He spends a few minutes analyzing the chip, takes several methodical practice swings and holes the shot. He celebrates like a soccer player scoring the winning goal. 

Next year, Khach tells me, I will play for Armenia.