By Rich Skyzinski

Following a tragic period of civil strife, the central European nation of Croatia has turned to golf, of all things, to help it travel along the road to recovery.

Certainly you will forgive the Croa-tians if, at least for a while, they're not very proficient at this. That's the effect all those years of indifference, all those years of political instability, volatility, have on a people.

"Golf?" questions Zlatan Juras with a look of bewilderment. "The leaders of the government would say, 'Screw golf. It is not for us. We do not need golf.' "

"We have to admit," adds Dino Klisovic, an international representative of golf in Croatia through his ties with the Croatian Olympic Committee, "that it was very tough to develop the sport of golf in the past socialist system. Circumstances in the past system were at least 10 times worse than now, and now they are not good. It was an attitude like, if someone is crazy and wants to play golf, okay, we won't forbid it, but we won't help, either."

When the Republic of Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, it ignited a civil war whose scars are still painfully tender. It takes more than a few years to recover from a conflict in which 9,000 people died, entire cities were leveled and, according to the government of Croatia, cost more than $20 billion. The fighting stopped in 1995, and since then Croatia has shown an admirable desire to put its tumultuous past behind it and stand on its own unsteady, but independent, feet.

Today, the sights and sounds of modern Zagreb, the capital, are not unlike those found in any other metropolis: 10,000 Maniacs on the radio, McDonald's on the street corner, Bolle shades on youthful temples, mini skirts on untanned legs, buzz cuts on teen heads, too many drivers preoccupied with their cellular phone conversations. Next month, in Santiago, Chile, Croatia will take another step toward becoming a welcomed member of the global community when it participates in golf's World Amateur Team Championships. This is unfathomable for several reasons, none more telling than the fact that, for all intents and purposes, there hasn't been real golf in the country since Zagreb Golf Club was closed 63 years ago.

"We don't expect great results," admits the 44-year-old Juras, captain of Croatia's WATC men's squad. "The experience will be great, but I know reality. I know where our place is. I will be very happy if we are not at the end."

"It is the biggest thing, probably, in our lives," says Bozidar Ivacic, president of the Croatian Golf Association and a member of the four-person men's team headed to Santiago. "It is good to be there to represent our nation, our people, our new state."

There was golf in Croatia, a tiny nation about the size of West Virginia, as far back as 1931, but the sport has never existed for more than a few years and until recently was never made available to the populace. The course that did exist, the nine-hole, par-35 Zagreb Golf Club, had 80 members, including a president who was a count, but for reasons unknown, the club folded in 1935 after only four years in business. Today those grounds are part of Maksimir Park, near the zoo, where families cavort with the dog, ice cream vendors set up shop under brightly colored umbrellas and old men while away summer afternoons on park benches.

There used to be a course, or at least most of one — the consensus is that there were 13 or 14 holes built but not 18 — near the coastal town of Split, which looks out over the Adriatic Sea, toward Italy, but Yugoslav warplanes bombed it beyond recognition during the war.

The only other golf facilities the country has ever known are two driving ranges. The first, built in the early '90s, was a seldom-used range — a field, actually, on the river (flooding) side of the dike that runs along the River Sava near the center of Zagreb — and Juras recalls those terrifying moments when a bucket of balls was interrupted by air raid sirens that blared over the city.

"We would run under the bridge to hide," he remembers. "We would look into the sky, watch the warplanes fly over...wait 10, 20 seconds...- if nothing happened, we would go back out to the range."

The other is, for now, the country's lone golf facility: a scruffy range (capacity: nine) at the Hotel I, which, when it opened a few years ago, initially attracted a smattering of business from foreign embassies and United Nations personnel. "It was much better because there were four or five tennis courts, a little cafe, shower rooms," said Ivacic, who paused, put his hands up and lamented with a shrug, "but still . . . we have no course."

As the elder statesman for golfers in Croatia, the 55-year-old Ivacic, a doctor by profession, is all too familiar with the endless cycle that has kept golf in Croatia from getting off the first tee. There are no courses because there are no players; there are no players because there are no courses.

Earlier this summer, 15-year-old Daria Zubrinic went to England to compete in a junior tournament. When she met other players and told them she was from Croatia, which had no courses on which to play or practice, the reaction was understandable. "They didn't believe me," she said. "They said, 'You must be joking. No courses? Really? Just a driving range? No way.' "

The closest course to the 1.2 million residents of Zagreb is actually in another country — Slovenia, near the Castle Mokrice (pronounced mo-KREEZ-a). But because traffic at the border checkpoint can back up, the 15-mile trip from Zagreb can take more than an hour. It is not uncommon to have a wait of 45 minutes or more at the border.

"It happens all the time," says Sanja Serfezi Kelemen, a three-time Croatian women's champion and a member of the inaugural WATC contingent. "Many people come from Zagreb to buy; the border, the lines are very long. Many times I come here for a tournament, have to wait, park the car, put the shoes on, and on the first tee I start."

"For many players it is their home course," adds Ivacic, "but for most players, it is too far. We must have a course in Zagreb, five minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes away. One hour is too far."

The course at Mokrice is a rough-around-the-edges layout, carved partially from rolling farmland, partially along a creekbed and partially on the side of a mountain. With a practice range that is, to be kind, downtrodden, it is an unlikely setting for one to hone his skills. But it is all there is. Admits Marin Filipovic, a vice president in one of Europe's largest timber harvesting companies and a 9 handicap who has also been selected to compete in Santiago, "We are talking no smooth fairways, no smooth greens, no smooth nothing."

The best course in Slovenia is a drive of another two-plus hours, to Bled, in the upper northwest part of the country. The facility has everything: 27 well-maintained holes, an expansive practice range, beautiful vistas of Italy and Austria. It even has history, albeit an ignominious one: its main clubhouse was used as a Gestapo headquarters in World War II.

But Bled is out of reach for most Croatians, both physically and financially. With transportation, accommodations, meals and golf, a weekend in Bled can run upward of $300, more than half of a Croatian's average monthly income. "We have no well-known players," explains Klisovic, "and under these circumstances, it is not possible to produce world-class players."

When the fighting ended and true independence came to Croatia in 1995, so did capitalism, and no one in golf has taken advantage of the paucity of facilities more than Matej Majic and his two business partners. They joined forces to build Golf & Country Club Dolina Kardinala near the town of Krasic (pronounced KRA-chich), located some 20 miles southwest of Zagreb.

After purchasing 75 hectares (about 185 acres) in small parcels from 78 different owners, Majic and company spared little expense constructing an immaculately groomed facility that will include 18 holes, a par-3 course, a 300-yard-long practice range, a chipping area and two practice greens. (Majic also discovered Croatians were quick to catch onto the idea of capitalism. When landowners learned what developers had planned, the price of property, Majic recalls, went "from high to astronomical.") When it opens next year, the course is certain to be the most impressive facility within the triangle of Austria to the north, Greece to the south and Italy to the east. It also will leave Albania and Macedonia as the only European countries without a golf course.

"We have lots of beginners," says Majic, a partner in a successful European computer company, "and that is important. We want to start the right way, giving those who want to play a proper place to learn." The best course in the country will be joined by other attractions: a hotel, restaurants and a shopping complex.

"We don't have any courses at the moment, but when I look four or five years back, we were nowhere," says Juras. "Now we have between 200 and 300 total golfers in Croatia. Next year, when the first course is completed, it will be a great chance for us, a great chance for the young people."

Despite the spiffy new facility in Krasic, there is no golf in Zagreb — at least, not yet. One of the seven golf clubs in Croatia, Golf & Country Zagreb '95, has designs for a 27-hole complex in the southwestern section of the city. There is no question the development of 220-plus acres is a formidable project. "The idea was to use all the land we have," says Klisovic. "If not for us, in another 10 years, this land would be devastated (even harder to develop) and not used for anything."

The site does not need another project that is beyond the reach of developers. It already has one next door: a still-to-be-completed hospital that is 17 years in the works. For 10 of those years, every employed Croatian had two percent of his salary go toward completion of the hospital. Says one member of the club: "I think maybe it will never be finished. I think the golf course will be done before that is."

"When the first golf course is built, especially in Zagreb, I think the number of golfers will multiply by several times," Klisovic says. "It's not easy to play golf at Mokrice or Bled. You have to have money, time, car. ... How can a young person play? There are no buses. Now we are in Croatia; the course is in Slovenia."

Proponents of golf in Croatia have reason to believe that, in time, they will represent themselves admirably. They point to examples their countrymen have set for them: Iva Majoli, the 1997 French Open tennis champion, and Goren Ivanisevic, runner-up at Wimbledon three months ago; Tony Kukoc, a prime contributor to the Chicago Bulls' run of NBA titles; a soccer team that finished third in the World Cup this year.

Though the handicaps of the seven Croatians headed to Chile range from 1 to 20, limited success — in this case, beating any of the other 36 women's teams or 58 men's entries — is not out of the question.

Croatia fielded its first international teams a year ago in the Mediterranean Games and at the European Team Championships. In the Mediterranean Games, its men's team finished ninth in a field of 10, its women fourth from a field of five. It was 21st among the 22 teams in the European Team event.

"We beat Slovakia," recalls Ivacic. "It was very nice. I think we are going, little by little, forward."

"People say the first was the sweetest," says Klisovic. "The first was the Mediterranean Games, and I'll never forget that feeling when we were entering the stadium at the opening ceremonies. A few days after that, the first official day of competition started and that, in every language, is too poor to have words to be able to express those feelings."

The best player in Croatia is acknowledged to be 19-year-old Miro Raic, who plays to his 1 handicap on an irregular basis. Earlier this year he won a 72-hole stroke-play event by 41 strokes; in the recent Slovenian Amateur he followed an opening-round 72 with an 82 that reportedly included five lost balls.

Some of his fellow WATC representatives have shown equally impressive abilities. Ivo Vukadin, a 41-year-old executive for a computer company, has in three seasons shorn his handicap from 36 to 24 to 9. "But now it is much more difficult for him to further improve," says Fadini. "I tell him that is not unusual."

Filipovic, a 9 handicap who did not play at all during his four years at the University of Texas, looks at his country's entry in the WATC as a no-lose proposition. "When you look at it, I think most of us would agree that it's going to be a big thrill," he says. "You're playing with guys with handicaps 0, 1, 2. First of all, we don't have anything to lose. Second, we can only play better than they expect us to play."

The seven players headed to Chile are the country's golf pioneers, but not its future. Five of them are 30 or older, which is representative of a country where there are but a handful of juniors.

"We are the first ladies in golf," says Cnjezana Crnoglavac, a member of the WATC squad despite being in only her second year of competitive golf. "Our experience only can help other people. That is our hope — the young generation. We would like to be the example for others."

"I hope in five, six years, many golf courses come out," says Kele-man. "I can remember 15 years ago, the same thing happened in tennis. Today in Zagreb we have 600 tennis courts and everybody plays. When we have many golf courses, people will play."

Golf in Croatia would stand no chance of getting off the ground if it were not for the Croatian Olympic Committee, which provides more than half the annual operating budget for the six-year-old national golf association. Admits Klisovic, "We would not compete in the European or world championships if the Olympic Committee did not pay. Generally, there is no interest in supporting golf in Croatia at the moment. There is no company that has come to me and said they were interested in supporting us. ... The biggest insurance company in the country spends $1 million in football, not one cent in golf.

"Economic interests in golf will grow," he continues. "Until then, we must survive. It's not easy, but we have already survived the first six years. And it cannot get worse. That I am convinced."

Two months before the World Amateur Team Championships, it was uncertain that either Croatian team would even have matching golf shirts to wear for the four days of competition. That they would carry identical golf bags was nearly out of the question.

They may not look fashionable and they may not play well. But give them time. After all, this is pretty new to them.