Enemies on the greens
India's ? Shiv Kapur and Ashok Kumar ? are battling each other at one course after another
| In golf, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus vied for the number one spot in the past and, currently, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, with Ernie Els thrown in for good measure, are all striving to stay on top. |
| Indian golf too has its share of rivalries. When pro golf was still a new phenomenon in India, the fight was between Rohtas Singh and Basad Ali. |
| This was followed by Vijay Kumar versus Mukesh Kumar's show of one upmanship. Now, Ashok Kumar and Shiv Kapur, India's brightest youngsters, are trying to prove who's the best among the two. |
| Barely in their 20s, Ashok and Shiv are hugely talented, but they couldn't have come from more different backgrounds. |
| On the one hand, we have Ashok Kumar, a poor caddie-turned-pro nurtured by Asian Games gold medallist, Amit Luthra. He came from Bihar to help his brother, a vegetable seller, eke out a living, wandered onto the course to work as caddie. Now barely two years after turning pro, he is No.1 in India after a fine amateur career. |
| Shiv Kapur, on the other hand, is a product of a public school and comes from a well-to-do family. A fine junior prospect, he was packed off to the US on a scholarship to combine a degree in business management with golf at Purdue University. He won an Asian Games gold medal and now harbours dreams of playing the US PGA. |
| Both of them are fiercely ambitious, totally focused and are moving towards their ultimate target "" the US Tour and Major titles "" with utmost precision. |
| Ashok made his debut on the Asian Tour Q-School last year and qualified for it. He has made a few appearances and made some progress like making cuts and picking up useful money. |
| But at home in his first full year, he dethroned the erstwhile king of Indian golf, Mukesh Kumar, and became India's No.1 in 2003-04, a position he claimed in the early stages of the 2004-05 season. "Now I will start concentrating on the Asian Tour. After a while, I will focus on the European and US Tours," says Ashok. |
| Meanwhile, Shiv Kapur, winner of the gold medal at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, says "No matter what else I do, it (Olympics) will always be a big landmark in my life. Maybe if I win a Major, it might become bigger, but as a special moment, it was great,"says Kapur, who came within a whisker of becoming the first Indian amateur to qualify for the US Open. "That was disappointing (not qualifying) after having come so close," he said. |
| Later, Shiv played his first pro event on the Asian Tour on a sponsor's invite even before he played the Indian Tour. He made the cut and showed great promise. Back in India, in his first pro event on home soil, he tied for 15th. And in the very next event, he emerged a winner. A title in his third start as a pro! |
| In the five events held so far on the Indian Tour, Ashok has won three while Shiv Kapur has won once in three appearances and finished second once. Ashok's two other starts were tied eighth and tied fifth, when Shiv won the title. Shiv's first appearance was tied 15th and his next one a win. The third was a runner-up finish to Ashok. |
| Wins apart, their scores have been fantastic. Ashok is yet to go over-par after five events. In five round, his worst has been four par rounds "" twice in his first event and once each in the next two. In 20 rounds in India this year, he is 63-under and has shot a 10-under and a nine-under once each. |
| Shiv is 36-under in 12 rounds and has been under par in 10 of those rounds, the two exceptions being in his first pro event in India. |
| Currently, both of them are playing at the Noida Open even as they are eyeing the Asian Tour events. As one official commented, "Hopefully, these two will play now and then on the Indian Tour because Indian golf needs faces and rivalries such as these. The crowd and sponsors will love it." |
| In the meantime, Indian golf fans can stand and watch the two going about the courses in India before hitting the international scene. l |