How golf in India is ridding itself of its tag of ‘an elite old man’s game’

Something unprecedented happened on the first Saturday of August 2021. Indian Twitter was in the news about golf: a topic that hardly anyone cares about. Usually, a live game gets less attention than the highlights of a 20 year old cricket match in India. But on that Saturday, at 2 a.m. IST, the Indians were getting up, looking at the definitions of birdie and bogey, reading the interpreters and refreshing the leaderboards. Everyone mentioned a name. #Aditi Ashok. A 23-year-old Indian golfer on the verge of winning a historic Olympic medal in Tokyo woke up thousands of people early in the morning to witness a game they had never seen before.

Aditi missed out on a medal on the last day and finished fourth. But she came close enough – to push her countrymen to the edge of their seats, to slightly raise the profile of her sport in her country. His performance indicated golf in India to be “an elite old man’s game”.

A Brief History of Indian Golf

Golf is old in India. really old. Older than India, if you consider August 15, 1947 as the country’s date of birth. It also predates World War I and, for the first time in the history of the sport, the Football World Cup, the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, and the modern Olympics.

As one of the early colonial imports, the British brought golf to the subcontinent in 1829 when they founded the Royal Calcutta Golf Club. (It is the oldest golf club in the world outside of Great Britain.) Soon more clubs started in different directions – the Royal Bombay Golf Club in 1842, the Bangalore Golf Club in 1876 and the Madras Gymkhana Golf Club in 1877.

All this, while golf in the United States, now considered the leading nation in the sport, did not even exist. Europe was still getting acquainted with it. Meanwhile, by the beginning of the 20th century there were about half a dozen fully active clubs in India.

However, golf has largely been the game of the rich since its inception. The high costs associated with membership, course fees, equipment and accessories made the sport exclusive to the upper class. This is especially true in India, where the rich-poor divide is greater than in the major golf-playing countries. Most of the courses here are hard to access as they are either owned by private clubs that charge a hefty membership fee, or the Indian Army. Golf sets consisting of driver, wood, hybrid, seven sets of iron and putter cost between ₹40,000 to ₹2,00,000 in India.

Because of its exclusiveness to the elite, golf has never been more popular in India. There have been sporadic successes at the professional level, a handful of internationally recognized Indian names, and very few young people taking up the sport.

However, Indian golf is changing.

COVID effect

Apart from Aditi’s Olympic valor, there was another major catalyst last year that helped fuel the growth of golf in India: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Romit Bose, President, Professional Golfers’ Association of India (PGAI), says, “Golf in India has received a big boost in the last two years.” “We have seen a three-fold increase in sales of equipment, usage of facilities and people coming to the game. This is India’s biggest growth ever.” He says his newly established academy within the Siri Fort Golf driving range in Delhi receives at least 200 people every day to play. On weekends this number is the least. Increases by 1.5 times.

“Compared to the pre-pandemic figures, the golf equipment industry has grown by 25 to 30 per cent,” says Atit Gaur, founder, Trinity Golf India, a distributor of some of the world’s leading golf brands. “We see higher sales not only in metros but also in some smaller cities like Nashik, Kanpur, Meerut, Bathinda and Bikaner. This is because there are courses within the defense sectors that let civilians play as well. ,

Hamza Yunus, Director of Golf at Prestige Prestige Golfshire Club in Bengaluru also reported an increase in bookings after 2020. “Over the weekend, we barely touched 180 pre-pandemic. Now, we are getting more than 210 bookings.

But how did the pandemic help increase these numbers?

Romit offers an explanation. “The pandemic made us focus on health and fitness. People wanted to adopt a new sport. Since golf is played with minimal human contact, it was also safe. So, we found new entrants” he says, “COVID also brought back many people – eg, elderly businessmen – who had given up golf in their 30s and 40s. These people suddenly got more time in their hands. Therefore, he picked up his clubs again.

young blood

The achievements of players like Jeev Milkha Singh and Arjun Atwal inspired young talent in the 2000s. Since 2010, Indian golf has been largely spearheaded by Anirban Lahiri, who holds 18 international titles. The 34-year-old is now the flag bearer of Indian golf along with Shubhankar Sharma (25) and Aditi (24).

“Success breeds success,” says Bibhuti Bhushan, director general of the Indian Golf Union (IGU), the national sporting federation for golf. “The performances of the current generation of players like Anirban and Aditi have generated tremendous interest in the game and have acted as inspiration.”

Pranavi Urs, 19, from Mysore is one such example. She was among the tens and thousands of people who inspired Aditi to win an Olympic medal in Tokyo. “Although she missed out on a medal, I think it was a big step forward for golf in India, especially for women,” she says.

Pranavi believes that golf is no longer a game of old people. “There is a lot of emphasis on fitness. It has become more physical. Too many young people, especially girls, are willing to try it. My school friends, who never understood the game at that time, are playing it now. Golf is a sport that is hard to explain to others, but once you start playing it, you will absolutely love it.

Pranavi currently plays in the Ladies European Tour (LET) Access Series, which is the official development tour of the LET series. She took up the sport when she was five years old, after seeing her father and brother leave regularly. That’s another thing about Indian golfers – most of them are usually introduced to the game by their fathers. Or they have an army background. And, almost all of them come from affluent families. But exceptions, though a handful, do exist.

popularize the game

The story of Chikkarangappa is one of the most notable in Indian golf. His father, Seenappa, was a mason who worked at the Eagleton Golf Resort in Bengaluru. Due to financial constraints at home, young Chikkarangappa also worked as a ball boy at the same resort for less than ₹50 a day.

The boy, wanting to emulate the players he sees every day, once took a club and swung it hard at the ball. He felt that no one was watching. But there was an eyewitness: Vijay Divecha, the resident coach. Divecha was impressed by the 11-year-old’s untrained but admirable shot and promised Chikkarangappa that he would support him if he took up the game.

The mason’s son is now one of the top 10 pro-golfers in the country. “I’m lucky. I was in the right place at the right time,” he says. Besides high-profile coaches like Divecha, he was backed by the golf resort he worked for. “I had good facilities, Had access to tools and mentors. But it certainly isn’t easy when you come from a non-golfing background. It’s a long, arduous journey to the top and one that requires you to make a lot of sacrifices. ,

Although 28-year-old Chikkarangappa sees more freshmen in golf now than in his early days, he feels it is still difficult for anyone outside the upper class to break through. He believes the sport needs to be made more accessible and popular.

“You cannot do this without government intervention,” says Rashid Khan, another top-10 Indian golfer. “In cricket, you have BCCI taking care of everything. For some other sports in India also, you have a proper body which takes care of things like appointing the right coach. We don’t have anything like that for golf.” Though there are institutions like IGU, PGAI and Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), they are not financially sound, hence limited in power.

Rashid also demanded more golf courses. At present, according to IGU, there are 2,00,000 golfers (amateur and professional) and 231 courses in India. That’s about 866 golfers per course. And, not all courses are accessible to everyone. In other words, not every golfer can easily find a place to play.

However, setting up a new curriculum costs crores. Therefore, Romit suggests that the focus should be on building new driving ranges rather than golf courses. Unlike a course, which requires acres and acres of land, a driving range requires just a cricket field space. “It’s like having a community tennis court. You can have a big stadium like Roland Garros, but we need more courts, which are entry points to the game.

Driving ranges are also more affordable than a typical golf course, where green fees are usually a few thousand. If you’re a student, at Romit’s Academy, you can hit the ball for as little as ₹200 – less than ₹120. Most of their clients are between the ages of 22 and 32.

Private golf courses are also offering special discounts to attract the youth. For example, membership in the Prestige Golfshire Club for golfers under the age of 18 costs 50% less than the regular membership fee.

“It’s a myth that golf is a rich man’s game,” says Brandon D’Souza, president of the Golf Industries Association. She agrees to have more driving range with Romit. Apart from this, he also suggests promoting domestic and inbound golf tourism. “Instead of going to Europe, we can get our golfers to travel to Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad or even Kodaikanal and Ootacamund.” Romit and Brandon also want the club to promote domestic leagues in the IPL. “It has to be fun and entertaining to attract people,” says Romit.

Indian golf still has a long way to go. Recently, however, the signs have been encouraging. Players, golf entrepreneurs and administrators agree that it has never been better. As Chikkarangappa says, this is the right time for the game to be more inclusive. “We have to devise a system in which youth from any background can easily participate in the sport. This way we can discover more talent. It will take a long time to prepare them. But if we start now, one of them will bring us an Olympic medal after 20-25 years.