BENGALURU: There’s no better way to spend a Sunday evening than with the gripping final of a sporting tournament, especially if it’s the British Open, an annual and one of the biggest tournaments in golf. Hosted by JW Marriott Bengaluru and organised by RN Sports Marketing, the After Hours Golf event saw many sports enthusiasts from the city in attendance, including golfer Sonam Chugh; Atul Ujagar, country director of Nike India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan; and Prithvi Raj Urs, the honorary secretary of Karnataka Golf Association (KGA), to name a few. As drinks and food flowed around the hotel’s grand ballroom, all eyes stayed trained to the screen to see who would be the final winner of the tournament.

While the championship took place in Northern Ireland, a common point of conversation around the room was about how the golf scene closer home is buzzing immensely. “Cricket may be mass but golf is niche, and people are slowly starting to warm up to the beauty and challenges of the sport,” said Ujagar, who has been playing the sport for over 20 years.

Agreed Suresh Vaswani, honorary consul, Office of the Honorary Consul of the West African country, Republique du Benin, who plays the sport for leisure. Bengaluru’s weather, he said, gives the players an edge over other cities in India. “The heat in Chennai and Delhi is crazy, but for us, the weather is great so we can play throughout the year,” added Vaswani, recalling how he sees many children taking to golf too. “Sometimes, my golf club is bigger than they are,” he said with a laugh.  

It’s easy to see why Vaswani said that. A corner of the ballroom was dedicated to a putting pit, where amateurs and pros alike could try their hand at the game. When CE approached Chugh, who was helping those interested in putting, she was guiding a girl around seven or eight years old with her swing. “Many parents now want their children to learn the sport. And it isn’t just children, many women are taking to the sport too,” she said, giving an example of how a tournament saw 15 participants last year, but the number grew to 40 this year.

While golf has always been assumed to be a corporate sport or a sport for the elite, the notion is slowly changing, thanks to more affordable training courses. V Venkat Subramaniam, former president of KGA, said, “We wanted to counter this perception so the golf training course for juniors is offered at a nominal price.” The association charges around `3,000 - `6,000 per month.   

Urs concurred, busting yet another myth about the sport. “It’s no longer an old man sport,” he said. “From an old man sport, it became a corporate sport. But now, many youngsters, aged 23 and below too, are doing well in golf. The idea is to push these people from club-level golf to professional-level golf, and this is something we are working on.”    

Also present at the event was Kayum Dhanani, MD, Barbeque Nation, who said the golfing community was only growing in the city. “Which is good because the bigger the community becomes, the better the infrastructure improves. More golf courses will come up too,”he added.