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Fairways and Greens: The art and the hard work that helped Sandhu shoot 59-under for eight rounds
Joy spoke to Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, who recently won back-to-back PGTI events with scores of -31 and -28, on how he managed to go so low…
63, 67, 61, 65, 61, 65, 62, 61.
28-under par total, followed by 31-under for a scoring average of 7.4-under for the eight rounds!
Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Singh Sandhu recently completed two most remarkable back-to-back weeks on the domestic PGTI Tour, winning the Mysuru Open by a whopping eight shots at 31-under par, followed by his triumph at the PGTI Players Championship near Bengaluru with a 28-under par effort. The second win at Clover Green, his fourth of the season, still needed a playoff against an equally rampant Udayan Mane. The two players were nine shots clear of the next-best player.
The 28-year-old, leading the Order of Merit now by a margin of more than INR24 lakh, has his eyes firmly set on the one DP World Tour card that goes to the No1 player of the Tour at the end of the season. Form is never guaranteed in sports. On the basis of his recent performances, Sandhu seems to be a shoo-in. However, previous experience has taught him that it’s not over until it’s over.
In 2022, Sandhu was having a stellar season, but Manu Gandas pipped him to the post with a terrific run in the closing stretch.
There are some who might question the fact that both golf courses are short. Clover Greens Golf Course and Resort is a par-71 and measures 6,890 yards. Mysuru’s Jayachamaraja Wadiyar Golf Club is a par-70 that stretches just 6,217 yards.
My take on this is simple – a short course, or even a pitch-and-putt course, would yield low scores only occasionally. Three 61s and those other scores are absolutely phenomenal. In cricket parlance, if this wasn’t making eight successive centuries in Test, it was close to making five hundreds and three fifties in successive Ranji Trophy innings.
Also, it’s not about how low he managed to go, but how consistently he managed to go that deep. That requires a different mindset, not just good form.
I spoke to Sandhu on the two tournaments, and it’s worth reading how he explains the eight days…
I could have gone lower than 59-under par for the eight rounds. The way I was scoring, I had a few really bad breaks on the back nine at Clover Green, which were not in my control. I had an issue on the 12th hole, but I made a birdie on the par-five. I was unlucky again on the 13th and made a bogey. And on the 18th, which is a par three, I was hitting a nine-iron, and it hit a boulder on the left edge of the green and went like 75 yards right of the green. I had a blind shot from there and made a bogey.
Getting low numbers is like driving a racing car at high speed. You’re at 150mph, you want to see if you can do 160mph. When I was playing Mysuru, I was 10-under par through 14 holes on the first day. It was then that my mind started telling me that if I can do this, I can definitely play 14-under for the round. I felt there was a potential of going even lower. I just told myself that I was going to try and chase that feeling. I stopped chasing the tournament. At Clover Greens, I shot an 8-under 64 on the opening day, but when I shot -10 in the third round, I was really happy that I finally shot a double-digit. That gave me a closer look at my potential and reinforced my belief.
People go back to their basics…I went back to my roots. I was playing well even during the summer when I missed three straight cuts in Asian Tour events. There was just one thing troubling me, my driver shaft. So, we were experimenting and decided to use the one I was using towards the end of last year when I played well in Yeangder and Mercuries in Taiwan. But I had a different head then, Callaway AI Smoke, and I now use Elyte. We were hitting more than 200 drives on the range every day. I could feel my shoulders coming off. We then plugged the old shaft back (an Aldi NV75), which is probably older than me! Ever since then, I have not only been hitting it long, but much straighter as well. I shot an eight-under par playing Chandigarh, and I knew that I had found the right driver set-up.
There is a bit of Mamba mentality to my off-season training. I don’t know if I outwork everybody, but I know one thing for sure – that I have probably been more consistent than anybody else. Like, I’ve showed up to the gym, to the range, to my sessions, no matter what. I’ve been really, really stubborn about it. Nothing can keep me away from doing what I had to do. I am a big Tiger fan and there are certain things he has said that are etched in my mind. He had this putting drills and would make 500 putts every day. I didn’t do 500 putts, but I made 300 putts every day. I think being consistent with your routines and drills is very important in golf.
It felt like autopilot, but I owe it to my team. We all worked really hard on all aspects of my game in the off-season. All of my team are experts in their own areas. Like my trainer, Lavish Choudhary, is one of the best trainers out there. My mental coach, Rabia Gill, is someone who is constantly getting better and helping me to get better… not just as a golfer, but as a human being. I’ve started working full-time with Gurbaaz Mann as my coach, and he has also been my club fitter for many years. Being such a good professional himself, Baaz has helped me feel better on the golf course. I am proud of my work ethic, but if you explain what I am supposed to be doing with proper logic, I will get after it even harder and not stop until I master it.
