Birdies with an eagle eye

Heaps of confidence, a smooth swing and super ball contact are Gangjee’s hallmark and all these qualities were showcased last month in Beijing, when the 25-year-old comfortably won the Asian Tour’s Volkswagen China Masters. The win made Gangjee the youngest Indian to win abroad.

Gangjee, despite the confidence, is still quite stunned as he says, ‘‘It is unbelievable and yet to sink in. I won as a rookie on the Indian tour in 2002 and have now won as a rookie here. I played dream golf, making just one bogey in the final 36-holes!’’

Kolkatan Gangjee, who started the year by going through qualifying school, now holds a two-year exemption to play the Asian Tour as well as a guaranteed entry to every tournament held for the rest of the year as he is placed 16th on the current Order of Merit with $50,732 in prize money earnings this so far year.

Known for his long-hitting, Chandigarh’s 21-year-old Gurbaaz Mann currently leads the race for the Rookie of the Year on the Professional Golfers’ Association of India (PGAI) Tour following a couple of top five finishes this season. Golf chose ‘Baaz’ more than he chose the game. ‘‘I just happened to get into the game as I was trying to be a tennis player,’’ says Baaz.

‘‘I represented my school in a junior inter-school tournament in Delhi. I was playing off a handicap of 14 but went out and shot two-over par. I then went to Bangalore the following week and finished fourth in a sub-junior tournament. However, I was still not too serious and only got hooked after I made the Indian team, while I was in class 11 and went to play the Singapore Open Junior Championship, where I beat Ashok Kumar to win the tournament. That was it,’’ Gurbaaz says.

Ashok Kumar recently turned pro and is currently leading the Order of Merit. He qualified for the Asian tour this year and has already surprised few of his contemporaries with his hitting. With a couple of Indian Tour victories already under his belt — he won the Noida Open 2002, and the Servo Masters in Digboi and the Sir Padampat Singhania Open in Noida this season — he will card a respectable year on the Asian tour as well, having finished tied 19th at the Myanmar Open in February.

Delhi’s Naman Dawar is another new kid on the block, blessed with a good swing and excellent temperament at just 24. While Dawar aims to be where Arjun Atwal is today, his fellow professionals feel that he should be ready for the Asian Tour next year. ‘‘I think any time you do what you need to do or produce the goods when you need to, you achieve something. That is basically what you practice and aim to achieve day after day,’’ he says.

All these young golfers have played junior and amateur golf and professional golf is their natural next step. After tasting success as an amateur, Zai Kipgen has been one of the best youngsters produced by the Delhi Golf Course. However, a road accident left him injured for almost an entire season and he is making a gradual comeback. And then there are youngsters like Rahul Ganapathy and Jaiveer Virk, who with Gangjee and the rest are just adding to the steadily growing talent pool in the country. Success, therefore, is at best 18 holes away.

Need of the hour:
A real PGA to look after our golfers

The Professional Golfers’ Association of India (PGAI) has brought Indian golf a long way from the days when a handful of players played a handful of tournaments, competing for a few thousand rupees. However, as golf in Asia booms, with Thai, Korean and even Indian golfers winning on the Tour quite regularly, it is time for the Indian Tour to provide a training ground, well equipped to groom this budding talent of youngsters.

The need of the hour is a strong Professional Golfers’ Association that will not only look after the interests of their members, but also take the sport to the next level. With a couple of golf management companies in the market organising and promoting corporate events, the demand for professionalism is also increasing.

All the major tours in the world invite marketing companies to bring in tournaments. As per the rules of the Asian Tour, the main role of the officialdom is the sanctioning, management, marketing, technical administration, development and promotion of professional golf tournaments in the region.

But that’s not what’s been happening in India. According to news reports during the Chandigarh Open last month, when the minutes of the players meeting were leaked out to the press, players had demanded more commitment from the marketing company as far as putting up the required prize money is concerned. Tiger Sports Marketing (TSM), the company that has held the marketing rights of the Tour for the last seven years, have failed to meet their commitments.

However, Digraj Singh, Director of TSM, is quick to refute this charge. ‘‘Till last year, we have matched every single bid we made. However, last year there was a shortfall and in case of a shortfall the understanding with the PGA was that the TSM would put in this money and we have already done so”

As per this agreement between the PGA and TSM, a Rs 28-lakh tournament will be held in Noida from June 1. Since the contract for marketing is up for grabs this year — and Nimbus has already put in a bid for over Rs 3 crore — the first right of refusal was given to TSM as they already held the contract.

Why and how TSM earned this first right of refusal, no one is very clear about.

The minutes of the meeting held in Chandigarh also saw some players voice their concern about the way tournaments are scheduled and the involvement of the marketing company with the members of the PGAI. ‘‘I have put up all these queries to the board and can only ensure that the interest of the players is looked after,’’ says Uttam Singh Mundy, board member of the PGAI.

In a positive step, the players are actually making an effort to work together in order to enable a more professional running of their tour. While various points are still under discussion, the bottomline seems to be that they are willing to be more responsible about the tour they represent.

Shona A Singh