Coimbatoreian in international Nomura cup

With the Indian competitive golf season ready to tee off in October, international competition also hots up as the Indian national amateur team heads to Taiwan for the prestigious Asia-Pacific Amateur Cham-pionship or Nomura Cup. This is an annual four man team tourna-ment and is considered the most prestigious of all international ama-teur tournaments in the region. The Indian team heading to the tournament consists of four young men – 22 year old senior Joseph Chakola of Coimbatore, 20 year old Anirban Lahiri of Hyderabad , 17 year old Chandigarh lad Rahul Bakshi and 14 year old Bangalorean Chikarangappa. This is easily the youngest Indian team ever and their ages are a significant indicator of how the sport has evolved in this country. In 1980 when I first broke onto the men’s team, after the team selection trials for the World Amateur Championship , as a teenager, I was the youngest among the qualifiers by a minimum of 10 years. At that time my inexperience and youth was considered a huge negative ! Today Chikarangappa, the youngster from Eagleton Golf Resort, Ban-galore, is still a week shy of his 14th birthday and is easily the youngest to have ever played for the Indian mens’ national team. He is also likely to be the youngest player in the tournament in Taiwan. The average age of this Indian team is 18 years, down further from the 20 year average of the Indian Asian Games silver medal winning team at Doha in 2006.

This augurs well for the sport in India – as our best players are getting younger. It shows that Indian players are reaching international competitive levels at younger ages than ever before thus emphasizing that golf is no more an old man’s game but one that is increasingly popular among youngsters. This Indian team’s composition also points to another significant break from a long standing trend. Whereas for many years Indian teams used to be dominated by players from North India, the team now features players from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and only one Chandigarh boy making up the team. Three players from South India is unprecedented and is certain to encourage more youngsters to take up the game. Its no wonder that the final coaching camp was held in Bangalore.

Coaching plays a huge part at this age and credit for producing a youngster like Chikarangappa must go to his coach, Vijay Divecha who has done a stellar job in Bangalore getting hordes of youngsters taking up the game. It is only a matter of time before we have the first Indian national champion from South India. The absence of players from the country’s major Delhi clubs in the national team should also jolt coaches and administrators at these elite golf clubs in the capital from their complacency. Just having the best facilities ( by far) does not ensure success in competition. Obviously the intangibles are missing right now in the capital’s international quality golf clubs. Indeed there was a time in the early 90’s when all the top 10 men, juniors and sub juniors hailed form Delhi – particularly the Delhi GC. Where are those talents now? Golf aficionados have asked that after Shiv kapur and Ashok Kumar – the two top Indian pro talents in their mid 20’s ( Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa, Gaurav Ghei and Arjun Atwal are all in their mid 30’s) who is next ? The answer seems to be – watch out for Gaganjeet Bhullar of Kapurthala, ( Punjab) who turned pro last season and for the 20 yr old Anirban Lahiri . Indeed Gaganjeet has ended his first full season as a pro ranked in the top 5 on the money list. These two boys are expected to go a long way.

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