Gaganjeet Bhullar (PTI Image)
SINGAPORE: Gaganjit Bhullar wore a smile as he exited the 18th green of the immaculate Serapong Course with a birdie. Fairways found, flagged, greens met in regulation, flagged, putts converted, flagged.
It was as if the first round was repeated on Friday… until the 14th and 15th, when he shot his first bogey in the tournament.No problem. The 16th was the highlight of his day, hitting nearly 30-35 feet. The closing birdie in the final ensured he added a three-under 68 to his four-under 67 to stay in contention at the halfway stage of the $2 million Singapore Open, just three strokes behind the third-placed leader.Bhullar’s position near the top of the leaderboard in the International Series event tells another story. The 11-time Asian Tour winner remains one of the last of his generation to consistently compete on the international stage. So, the question remains: where is the next golfer from India? The numbers are alarming. At the Hero Indian Open last March, only three Indian players made it to the DLF.
Months earlier, at the DP World India Championships at the DGC, only five advanced to the weekend rounds. These are tournaments that are held on home soil, in an environment that should favor local players. However, the gap between local promise and global success appears to be widening.Jeev Milkha Singh, who withdrew due to previous problems, believes that one should set high standards and be ready to work for it. “You have to believe that you don’t want to be the best in Asia, you have to believe that you want to be the best in the world.
“Faith, discipline, routine, process, it’s all tied together,” the 54-year-old said.Go out and challenge yourself, was Shiv Kapoor’s advice. The 44-year-old, who had great success on Thursday, won his first Asian Tour title as a rookie. He remembers climbing the traditional ladder from local circuits to the Asian and European tours, but he sees a shift in mentality now. Kapoor recalls moving between continents early in his career, moving from the US to Australia, and from Malaysia to India, respectively.
The financial losses were great, but so was the learning.
“If you’re in your 20s, you should be traveling the world and taking chances,” he says. He says that what he is discovering now is a kind of softness. “I don’t see hunger.”Bhullar, 37, took part in the matter. “We try to mentor a lot of young people and you can grow and experience the local tour but the destination is somewhere abroad.”Schiff added: “Don’t think it’s a lack of facilities, we couldn’t get the equipment. We had very few golf courses. So, all of those things have improved. It’s just a matter of players feeling comfortable in big tournament settings.”Have Indian players found their comfort zone back home, with the amount of prize money available in the PGTI and IGPL? It can be a double-edged sword. “Players can make a good living, and that can be a good thing.
This is setting their goals. “But I always wanted to be a world-class player,” Jeff said.SSP Chaurasia, the last Indian to win the National Open (2016, 2017), puts the issue more bluntly: “Maybe they think: ‘I’m making money and that’s good enough.’ But when we played, when we got to the Asian Tour, we always thought about putting ourselves in pressure situations, and only then do your best games come out.The different paths from PGTI and IGPL offer opportunities, but the next generation suffers from missing pieces in their minds and games at the international level.
Bhullar has faith that fortunes will change. “These things happen in cycles. In the next four-five years, the next generation will be ready. Kartik Singh can be a great player. Vir Ganapathy, a solid ball-striker. It’s only a matter of time when these kids believe, and start playing for Kew Schools like we did.”
“(The writer is in Singapore at the invitation of the World Series)Singapore Open – Second Round: -10 Jeong Woo Ham (South Korea) 64-68; -8 Jas Janwattanand (tha) 66-68; -7 Tomohiro Ishizaka (Japan) 67-68, Gaganjeet Bhullar 67-68 (-7); T-3;Other Indians do the cutting (they are placed at one point): Pukhraj Singh Gill: 71-70 (-1); T-38; Karandeep Kochhar: 71-71 (e); T-43.