Gaganjeet Bhullar holds fort in Singapore Open while India searches for successors

SINGAPORE: Gaganjeet Bhullar wore a smile as he stepped off the 18th greens of the immaculate Serapong course with a birdie. Fairways found, tick, greens in regulation met, tick, putts converted, tick. It’s as if the first round was replayed on Friday … until the 14th and 15th, where he dropped his first bogeys of the tournament.

No problem. The 16th was the highlight of his day, with a downhill putt close to 30-35 feet. And the closing birdie on the final ensured he had added a three-under 68 to his fourunder 67 to stay in contention at the halfway stage of the $2m Singapore Open, just three strokes behind the leader in tied-third place.

Bhullar’s position near the top of the leaderboard at the International Series event told another story. The 11-time winner on the Asian Tour remains one of the last from his generation to consistently contend on the international stage. So, the question lingers: where is the next breakthrough golfer from India? The numbers are sobering. At the Hero Indian Open this March, only three Indian players made the cut at the DLF. Months before that, at the DP World India Championship at DGC, just five advanced to the weekend rounds. These are tournaments played on home soil, in settings that should favour local players. Yet the gap between domestic promise and global success appears to be widening.
Jeev Milkha Singh, who withdrew with back issues, believes one should set high standards and be willing to work for it. “You’ve got to believe that you don’t want to be the best in Asia, you’ve got to believe you want to be the best in the world. Belief, discipline, routine, process, it’s all linked together,” said the 54-year-old.

Go out, challenge yourself was Shiv Kapur’s advice. The 44-year-old, who made a hole-in-one on Thursday, won his first Asian Tour title as a rookie. He remembers climbing the traditional ladder from domestic circuits to the Asian and European tours, but he sees a shift in mindset now. Kapur recalls crisscrossing continents early in his career, moving from the US to Australia, Malaysia to India in succession. The physical toll was considerable, but so was the learning. “If you’re in your 20s,” he argues, “you should be out there travelling the world and grabbing opportunities.” What he detects now, he says, is a certain softness. “I just don’t see the hunger.”
Bhullar, 37, chipped in. “We are trying to mentor a lot of the youngsters and you can grow and experiment on the domestic Tour but the destination is somewhere abroad.”

“Don’t think it’s because of lack of facilities,” added Shiv, “We couldn’t get equipment. We had very few golf courses. So, all of those things have improved. It’s just a question of the players getting comfortable in big tournament settings.”
Have the Indian players found their comfort zone at home, with the amount of prize money available on the PGTI and IGPL? It could be a double-edged sword. “Players can make a good livelihood, that can be a good thing. That’s their goal setting. But I always wanted to be a world-beater,” said Jeev.

SSP Chawrasia, the last Indian to win the national Open (2016, 2017) frames the issue more bluntly: “Maybe they think, ‘I’m making money and it is good enough.’ But when we played, when we came onto the Asian Tour, we always thought about putting ourselves in pressure situations, then only your best game surfaces.”

The different pathways from PGTI and IGPL provide opportunities but the next generation struggles with the missing pieces in their minds and games on the international level. Bhullar has faith that fortunes will change. “These things happen in cycles. In the next four or five years, the next generation will be ready. Kartik Singh can be a great player. Veer Ganapathy, solid ball striker. It’s just a matter of time when these kids believe, and start playing the Q-Schools like we did.”

(The writer is in Singapore at the invitation of International Series)

Singapore Open 2nd round: -10 Jeongwoo Ham (Kor) 64-68; -8 Jazz Janewattananond (Tha) 68-66; -7 Tomohiro Ishizaka (Jpn) 67-68, Gaganjeet Bhullar 67-68 (-7); T-3;

Other Indians making the cut (placed at one-over): Pukhraj Singh Gill: 71-70 (-1); T-38; Karandeep Kochhar: 71-71 (E); T-43.

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