From the publishers of THE HINDU Vol. 24 :: No. 47 :: Nov. 24 - 30, 2001	Home Contents
	GOLF/HONDA-SIEL PGA CHAMPIONSHIP Arjun, a cut above the rest KIRTI PATIL THE hallowed precincts of the Delhi Golf Club course witnessed yet another show of dominance as a rejuvenated Arjun Singh captured the biggest prize of his career when he won the Honda-SIEL PGA championship. S. SUBRAMANIUM Arjun Singh with the biggest prize of his career - the Honda- SIEL PGA championship trophy. With this stupendous win - transcending the twice winner Uttam Singh Mundy by five strokes - Arjun Singh announced his foray into the big league. With the kind of golf he played for four days, Arjun surprised one and all. His precision was immaculate, swing perfect and putting unblemished. It was a sort of performance that Arjun himself was impressed with. And, having played on the Davidoff Asian PGA Tour this season with moderate success, Arjun was thinking big for the next season. Arjun will be the fourth golfer among the current players who have decided to expand their horizon beyond the Asian circuit. Along with Chiranjeev Milkha Singh, who holds cards for both the European PGA Tour and the Japanese PGA, two more Indians, Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal, have been trying their luck at the U.S. PGA Tour Qualifying School tournament this year. The trio has already made it to the second stage. Elsewhere, Amandeep Johl has been exploring possibilities to enter the European Tour, through the Qualifying School tournament in Spain. Arjun Singh's desire to go straight to the U.S. PGA Q-School in October 2002 shows his confidence. "I'll rather play in the U.S. PGA," said Arjun when asked whether he would try his hand in the lucrative Japanese Tour - the route Chiranjeev Milkha Singh had taken. Yet, in scripting his sixth career triumph, Arjun was unlucky on three terms. His most unfortunate moment undoubtedly was missing the hole-in-one on the par-3 fifth green. The prize at the fifth hole was a Honda Accord luxury car, cost-wise three times more than the winner's purse of Rs. 4.86 lakhs. Teeing off with a seven-iron, Arjun swung precisely as the ball dropped on the green and raced towards the pin. But, for the extra force it carried the ball would have dipped in. Instead, the ball lipped out of the hole and stopped two inches from it. A sheer heartbreaking moment for Arjun. While Arjun made a sarcastic comment about his own luck, Mundy's spontaneous observation was equally noteworthy. "It was like Arjun sat in the car and then alighted realising that it wasn't his," Mundy said. If Arjun was unlucky to win the Honda Accord car, missing the sole ownership of the course record at the DGC was another aspect that will linger in his memory for long. His first day's workout was a spectacular eight-under 64, which virtually allowed him to stay clear of the competition for rest of the three rounds. Arjun's winning aggregate of 17-under 271 also had a little story that the golfer would not like to remember for long. After four days of consistent golf Arjun had just one bogey, on the par-3 17th on the third day, as a blot on his otherwise clean scorecard. As he neared to finish his homeward stretch with a new four-day course record on his card, Arjun drove his first wayward tee shot. Just when he was to take the tee shot on the 18th hole, the sudden ringing of the phone disturbed his concentration and for the first time in four days he strayed into the bushes. Consequently, he had to settle for a shared record, earlier set by Shiv Prakash at the 1998 SRF Open. At the end of it, even as others made attempts to catch up with him, Arjun remained cool and calculative. On the course, Arjun kept his mind focussed and never allowed it to react to the happenings. Even better scores by the players in his group or bad putting by himself refused to unsettle him. This kind of mental strength which he has developed after battling shoulder injury for about two years, helped him in many ways. The prestigious tag of "The PGA Champion of India" was deservedly his. "It was wire to wire competition though at the end it became little easier," said Arjun Singh. "I kept telling myself that just be patient as it is easy to drop shots at this course, and anyone can catch up with," Arjun said of Mundy's early charge on the final day. Besides Mundy, the Order of Merit leader on the Hero Honda Indian Golf Tour, Mukesh Kumar, was the only other player who was at a striking distance from Arjun. Mukesh had remained in hot pursuit with an opening round of 66, but the pre-event favourites, Jyoti Randhawa, Vivek Bhandari and Sweden's Daniel Chopra disappointed the punters as they fell victims to the vagaries of the DGC, which is famous for its jungles. The Mhow-based Mukesh Kumar did well to keep himself in the leader group, but it was Mundy who made the contest interesting by keeping Arjun on tenterhooks - at least till they had made the turn for the home stretch on the final day. Mundy has had an impressive season so far with three top-ten finishes in five starts. But, a win has eluded him for long. His last win came at the AGC Wills Meerut Open in the 1998-99 season, and for a golfer of his calibre such a long wait speaks of the kind of talent that the country has been producing over the years. Mukesh is one such example. He rose from a caddie to a golfer of reckoning on the Indian Tour. Not all are happy with his steep rise - Mukesh has been the Player of the Year for the last two successive seasons. Having a professional rivalry was understood, but one cannot fathom making politics of the sport that has so far helped them earn their living. It has emerged as a big challenge for Mukesh, who notwithstanding the unwanted distraction, has kept his focus right. On the Indian Tour, Mukesh has been the most consistent player so far this season. After having won a tournament in South, Mukesh struck big by winning the first major, the Sher-e-Kashmir Open, at the picturesque Royal Springs Golf Course in Srinagar. Two back-to-back runner-up finishes, in Lucknow and Noida Open, had left him hungry for success. But, the speculations were put to rest by Arjun Singh. The clinical precision with which he played the tee shots was a treat to watch. He went bogey-free for 52 straight holes before making one. Not many have seen such unadulterated golf being played in India. Mukesh Kumar's woes were due to his own making. He drifted out of contention mainly because of his attitude of rushing things. He made several errors in his tee shots and wandered into the forest several times picking up bogies and double bogies. For the defending champion Randhawa, nothing seemed to work right. He made a mellowed start and remained just about in the top 25, but had resolved to be among the top finishers. Randhawa fired the best card of the final day, five-under 67 after having opened with a perfect birdie-birdie start. Randhawa sneaked into the fourth position ahead of Sweden's Daniel Chopra (281) and Harmeet Kahlon (283). Gaurav Ghei was tied seventh along with Shiv Prakash and Rohtas Singh, all at three-under 285. India number three, Ashok Kumar showed great temperament to win the amateur's event, with an aggregate of two-under 286. Ashok had struggled on the first day with 76, but made steady progress carding 68, 69 and 73 to leave the rest way behind. Simarjeet Singh took the runner-up position with two-over 290. As with the other events, the backlash of the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. had its shadow on the PGA championship. Scheduled to be a joint-sanctioned event on the Asian PGA Tour and the Indian Tour with 200,000 dollars as prize money, the championship was revised later on. The scores (after 72 holes): Arjun Singh (64, 69, 67, 71) 271; Uttam Singh Mundy (68, 70, 68, 69) 275; Mukesh Kumar (66, 70, 71, 71) 278; Jyoti Randhawa (71, 71, 70, 67) 279; Daniel Chopra (Swe) (70, 69, 70, 72) 281; Harmeet Kahlon (69, 71, 69, 74) 283; Gaurav Ghei (69, 74, 71, 71), Shiv Prakash (68, 71, 73, 73) and Rohtas Singh (69, 70, 72, 74) 285; A. J. Coetsee (RSA) (73, 73, 68, 72) and Ashok Kumar (A) (76, 68, 69, 73) 286; Mohd. Islam (74, 72, 68, 73) 287; Sanjay Kumar (74, 71, 73, 70) and Vijay Kumar (72, 71, 70, 75) 288; Amritinder Singh (70, 69, 75, 75) 289; Dinesh Kumar (72, 73, 73, 72), Vivek Bhandari (74, 71, 71, 74), Simarjeet Singh (A) (68, 72, 76, 74), Rafiq Ali (72, 68, 75, 75) and Digvijay Singh (70, 69, 74, 77) 290. 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