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Finest Indian golf players tee off at Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational 2021
Guest Column: It will be especially beneficial for aspiring tricity golf juniors and amateurs to learn from top golf professionals who will pull off some of the most amazing drives, chips and putts over the next four days
Round 1 of the Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational 2021 commences at 6.50am on Thursday at Chandigarh Golf Course, a tree-lined parkland course which over the past half a century has produced a majority of India’s finest golf players, including the host, Jeev. With a par of 72, Chandigarh Golf Course has 4 par 5s, 4 par 3s and 10 par 4s. It’s now time for serious golf for the next four days after the fun Pro Am in which the pros got a feel of the golf course and the members got a chance to play with the pros and also pick up a few tips from them.
This is the leading prize money event on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) along with the year ending Tata Steel Tour Championship with a total prize money of ₹1.5 crore and offering a 1st prize of ₹24 lakh being 16% of the total prize money. It is the 20th event of the proposed 24 events of the pandemic-hit 2020-21 combined PGTI season.
Local winner predicted amid perfect weather
The Golf Club and course are all decked up with colourful flags, sponsors’ hoardings and night time celebration lights. The fairways are green and soft and the speed of the Bermuda may reach 10-11 on the stimpmeter by day four provided they are polished with the roller. The bunkers are soft with some new sand and the rough is fair and about 2-3 inches high at places.
The tournament director has decided not to invoke the preferred lie rule as many pros were expecting due to the early morning dew which keeps the fairways soft till around 10am and alongside the cooler temperature make for the holes to play longer as the ball flies shorter in the cold and has little roll due to the dew factor.
A local winner is predicted and a winning score of 15-20 under par will be easily achievable as the weather is perfect with negligible wind and the fairways and greens soft with short irons into the par 4s and 2 of the par 5s are easily reachable.
Excellent opportunity for tricity’s golf fraternity
It is an excellent opportunity for the almost 10,000-strong tricity golf fraternity of Chandigarh Golf Club, Panchkula Golf Club, CGA Golf Range, Mohali Golf Range, SEPTA, Chandimandir, and Forest Hills Golf Resort to watch the finest Indian golf players in action, including Jeev Milkha Singh, defending champ and order of merit leader Karandeep Kochhar, Jyoti Randhawa, Gaganjeet Bhullar, Shiv Kapur, Ajeetesh Sandhu, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Jairaj Singh Sandhu, Viraj Madappa, and Adil Bedi, and support the 25 local participants, comprising a staggering 22 pros and three amateurs who play out of Chandigarh.
It will be especially beneficial for aspiring tricity golf juniors, amateurs and children to learn from the top golf professionals who will pull off some of the most amazing drives, chips and putts over the next four days. They can learn a lot from seeing in person their swings, short game, putting, equipment, fitness and course management.
Carnival-like atmosphere on course
The Golf Club has planned to have a carnival-like atmosphere for its members during the week on the sidelines with daily lawn lunches, a Club Nite concluding with a gala complimentary lunch followed by the prize distribution on Sunday.
For me, it is always a pleasure to play on my home course and I’m grateful to my childhood golfing partner, Jeev, and the sponsors TAKE Sports for inviting me to participate.
I spent the Pro Am day fine tuning various aspects of my game and taking advice from experienced CGA-based coach Jesse Grewal, who has been guiding me over the past six months. I prefer to take it a bit easy on the day before the event and especially on a course where I have spent 45 years. My game and fitness is getting better by the day and I’ve undertaken good physical work and restarted mobility exercises and proper nutrition as I look forwad to teeing off at 11.40am from tee no 1 with Indian Open Champion Firoz Ali of Royal Calcutta Golf Club and maverick Ashok Kumar of Delhi Golf Club.
We will miss the presence of the legends and Jeev’s parents, Mr and Mrs Milkha Singh, and the successful conduct of this prestigious tournament will be a fitting tribute to them. kahlontrio@gmail.com
The writer is an Asian Tour winner and Arjuna Awardee in golf
