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Sports and food are two things that go hand in hand, especially for the viewers. For a long time now, the concept of sports bars has been prevalent. You have a large screen with live match streaming along with food and drinks. There are also places where you can play a sport whilst enjoying your delicious food. One of the recent such places that I visited was Smaash at Inorbit mall. I could play Cricket or Bowling while enjoying my favorite food. But how about playing golf and doing the same thing?
Last weekend, I visited OneGolf Hyderabad, a rather unique place in Hyderabad that has been existing for close to a year now. It was an outing with friends and that called for a fun place to hang out. Since all of us didn’t quite want to go to the same place again, we decided to try OneGolf this time. Hence, this post is going to be my golfing and dining review of OneGolf Hyderabad.
Golfing At OneGolf Hyderabad Review
Rewind to a few years ago, I visited a place in Jayanagar Bangalore where I first played bowling. It was a place where we had a huge bowling alley along with a seating area where we were served food and drinks. I fondly remember, biting into a slice of Pizza and then taking my turn. That was how I was introduced to bowling.
Talking about Golf, my first interaction was during the Krishnapatnam Golden Eagles Golf event organized at Ohri’s Boulder hills a few years ago. I didn’t play but just saw a few other players hitting it out of the park. Got to interact with Kapil Dev, Brian Lara, and Maddy along with Sharmila Nicollete. The first time I held a club (golf stick) and played Golf was here at OneGolf Hyderabad.
Location & Ambience
OneGolf Hyderabad is located in the growing area of Gachibowli. To be fair, I’d say it could be in Narsinghi or Kokapet as well. A short drive from Zero40 brewery located in Gowlidoddy is this place. Formerly home to Rendevouz, a place I always wanted to visit, but never visited. It’s easy to locate and Google Maps also has the correct location. They have valet parking available with a large parking space.
The first thing that you notice once you enter the place is the huge nets around the mini Golf course. There’s a brewery on one side where you can have a relaxed time in case you’re not interested to play. However, since we all wanted to play, we headed to the place where all the action was.
It is quite a large place, especially the dining area along with the bar counter with some resemblance to Heart Cup Coffee Gachibowli. There’s a large bar counter right in the middle with a huge screen in the background. There are different seating options including sofas along with high chairs and tables.
Golfing at OneGolf- How it works?
The golf bays are on the left-hand side of the building. These are bays created that can accommodate 5 -8 people at once. These bays are located on the ground as well as the first floor, so it totally depends on you where you want to play from. There are golf clubs of different sizes and types available. You can also order your food & drinks, and they’ll happily serve you as you take your shots.
Coming to how this whole golfing works at OneGolf Hyderabad. So you have these 5 big circles marked in the golf area which are located at different distances. Each of them is of a different size as well. You need to try and hit the ball in those circles. You get 120 shots that can be shared among 5 people or you can take all of them. And you need to finish your game within an hour.
What I didn’t quite like about this is that there’s no gamification of Golf. You simply go and aimlessly take shots without any scores or goals. Even those circles marked in the arena are of no use. Whether you hit or miss, it doesn’t matter as you just continue to aimlessly take shots. It isn’t fun that way. There has to be some sort of scoring/gaming mechanism to make it fun and engaging. We were frankly bored after taking a few shots as we kept hitting aimlessly.
The golfing experience at OneGolf Hyderabad costs Rs 2500 for 1 hour/120 shots. Based on the experience I had, this is not worth it. Had there been some gamification, it would have been fun playing. But for aimlessly hitting the ball, I believe that Rs 2500 for 1 hour is a little too steep on the pocket. The whole golfing thing at OneGolf needs some revamp as the current one isn’t helping the cause.
I saw that at other bays as well, most people were making Instagram reels, taking pictures and videos, but there was no play as such. I’m not saying that it’s not fun, just that without gamification, it’s just boring after a while and 1 hour feels a long time.
Dining at OneGolf Hyderabad
Coming to food, they have a typical bar menu with finger food, Pizza, Pasta, Asian & Indian mains along with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Since we were 6 of us, we decided to order a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Our order included a Classic Minestrone Soup, Chilly Paneer, Mezze Platter, Cheese Garlic Bread, Thin Crust Mexican Pizza, Chicken Peri Peri & Chilly Garlic Prawns along with Ginger Ale, Beers, Virgin Mojito & Orange Splash.
The service was neither slow nor fast so it wasn’t like we were waiting for the food to arrive. The drinks came in first and I’d say these were fairly standard. Mojito was done well and so was the orange splash. The beer too was fairly good as per my friends.
Talking about the food, Chilly Paneer was good. Paneer was crispy and nicely tossed in the sauce. The mezze platter had Falafels, Pita bread along with Hummus and Baba ghanoush. This was good, the falafels were nicely done and so was the Hummus. If I had to choose one dish that stood out for me, it had to be the Mexican Pizza. It was a nicely baked, thin-crust pizza with a generous topping of corn, capsicum, olives, tomatoes, and cheese. If I go there again, would surely re-order this pizza and maybe the Mezze platter as well.
Overall, the food was decent but nothing great. While ordering, we didn’t order based on what we liked, instead, we asked the server to suggest the best dishes.
Final Verdict: Good One-Time Outing
We all were quite excited to visit a new place and especially OneGolf. It was going to be a new experience for all of us. And frankly, we all did have a good time. Since it was a reunion with an old office colleague, many other things took a backseat and it was all about the stories from the past. Nevertheless, the overall experience is good. The food and drinks are nice and so is the ambiance. The staff is friendly & accommodating.
The golfing bit, however, I feel needs to be relooked. Without gamification, it’s just hitting the balls and it’s quite boring. If you’re a first time, you’ll like it but again it’d get boring after a while. Including the food and golf, we paid around Rs 9200 Rs for 5 people which is slightly on the steeper side. But again, it’s Golf, it’s a rich people’s game 🙂
Let me know if you’ve been to a similar place earlier. How has your experience been? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Tweet to me at @Atulmaharaj, DM me on Instagram, or Get In Touch.
