The Indian scored an impressive 65 in blustery conditions to head a field including some of golf’s most in-form players such as Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia.
Long pigeon-holed as a player who could only win on home soil, India’s SSP Chawrasia believes he has finally found the form to take on the world’s best on foreign fairways.
Chawrasia posted the leading opening round score in the Hong Kong Open on Thursday, scoring an impressive 65 in blustery conditions to head a field including some of golf’s most in-form players such as Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia and Tommy Fleetwood.
It is all a long way from the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Asia’s oldest course, where his father worked as greenskeeper and Chawrasia first learnt the sport as a caddie before picking up the clubs in his own right.
“My father was working there in Kolkata and he said, ‘You can’t play golf, it’s too expensive’,” said Chawrasia, now 39.
“But I said ‘No, I have to play!’ Now he’s been retired 20 years but he’s very happy – and I’m making money!”
Chawrasia has enjoyed an impressive run of form at home of late, making history – and €275,000 ($325,000) – in March by retaining his title at the Hero Indian Open with a seven-stroke win in New Delhi.
That feat made Chawrasia the first Indian to successfully defend a European Tour title, and the first player to win their first four events on the tour all in their home country.
But Chawrasia added a potentially more significant victory at the Philippines’ Manila Masters last year, his first professional win abroad, and has his sights set on further victories on foreign soil.
“I won already last year in Manila… I’m trying. Still I’m not playing any Majors so that’s my target hopefully. I’m playing Singapore, first event [in the] Asian Tour next year, and there are top four spots going to the British Open.
“Every week I’m playing better, but I don’t think about, ‘He’s world No 1’… I respect but I’m not looking [at the ranking].
“When I’m playing, I’m just focusing on my game. If I’m looking at someone’s world ranking or someone’s scoring, I’m losing my confidence.”
The highlight of Chawrasia’s opening round was a remarkable recovery pitching wedge out of the rough and over tall trees approaching the par-five third hole, which he landed three feet from the pin.
“That shot was really great because I hit the tee shot a little bit left of the rough, and got a lay-up from there, and third shot was like 115 yards short into the wind… my shot of the day today,” he said.
“It’s good. I’m five-under today and very happy… but it’s the first round, so not much pressure!
“I’m playing the last couple of weeks well. I have a good confidence. Hopefully the next three days I’m playing well.”
Having come of age in the Age of the Internet, millennials had a rocky start to self-expression. Indeed, the internet allowed us to personalise things in unprecedented fashion and we really rose to the occasion. The learning curve to a straightforward firstname.surname@___mail.com email address was a long one, routed through cringeworthy e-mail ids like coolgal1234@hotmail.com. You know you had one – making a personalised e-mail id was a rite of passage for millennials after all.
Declaring yourself to be cool, a star, a princess or a hunk boy was a given (for how else would the world know?!). Those with eclectic tastes (read: juvenile groupies) would flaunt their artistic preferences with an elitist flair. You could take for granted that bitbybeatlemania@hotmail.com and hpfan@yahoo.com would listen to Bollywood music or read Archie comics only in private. The emo kids, meanwhile, had to learn the hard way that employers probably don’t trust candidates with e-mail ids such as depressingdystopian@gmail.com.
And with chat rooms, early millennials had found a way to communicate, with…interesting results. The oldest crop of millennials (30+ year olds) learnt to deal with the realities of adolescent life hunched behind anonymous accounts, spewing their teenage hormone-laden angst, passion and idealism to other anonymous accounts. Skater_chick could hide her ineptitude for skating behind a convincing username and a skateboard-peddling red-haired avatar, and you could declare your fantasies of world domination, armed with the assurance that no one would take you seriously.
With the rise of blogging, millennial individualism found a way to express itself to millions of people across the world. The verbosity of ‘intellectual’ millennials even shone through in their blog URLs and names. GirlWhoTravels could now opine on her adventures on the road to those who actually cared about such things. The blogger behind scentofpetunia.blogspot.com could choose to totally ignore petunias and no one would question why. It’s a tradition still being staunchly upheld on Tumblr. You’re not really a Tumblr(er?) if you haven’t been inspired to test your creative limits while crafting your blog URL. Fantasy literature and anime fandoms to pop-culture fanatics and pizza lovers- it’s where people of all leanings go to let their alter ego thrive.
Then of course social media became the new front of self-expression on the Internet. Back when social media was too much of a millennial thing for anyone to meddle with, avatars and usernames were a window into your personality and fantasies. Suddenly, it was cool to post emo quotes of Meredith Grey on Facebook and update the world on the picturesque breakfast you had (or not). Twitter upped the pressure by limiting expression to 140 characters (now 280-have you heard?) and the brevity translated to the Twitter handles as well. The trend of sarcasm-and-wit-laden handles is still alive well and has only gotten more sophisticated with time. The blogging platform Medium makes the best of Twitter intellect in longform. It’s here that even businesses have cool account names!
Self-expression on the Internet and the millennials’ love for the personalised and customised has indeed seen an interesting trajectory. Most millennial adolescents of yore though are now grownups, navigating an adulting crisis of mammoth proportions. How to wake up in time for classes, how to keep the boss happy, how to keep from going broke every month, how to deal with the new F-word – Finances! Don’t judge, finances can be stressful at the beginning of a career. Forget investments, loans and debts, even matters of simple money transactions are riddled with scary terms like beneficiaries, NEFT, IMPS, RTGS and more. Then there’s the quadruple checking to make sure you input the correct card, IFSC or account number. If this wasn’t stressful enough, there’s the long wait while the cheque is cleared or the fund transfer is credited. Doesn’t it make you wish there was a simpler way to deal with it all? If life could just be like…
Lo and behold, millennial prayers have been heard! Airtel Payments Bank, India’s first, has now integrated UPI on its digital platform, making banking over the phone easier than ever.
