Gurgaon: The Golden Greens Golf Club has been a happy hunting ground for Vani Kapoor, the country’s number one amateur golfer, and it was no different in the second leg of the Callaway Junior Golf Tour 2011-2012.
The diminutive 17-year-old made her way into the record books earlier this year in September at the same venue when she won a ladies professional event. In fact, she decimated the field, which included India’s top professional golfers like Simi Mehra, Sharmila Nicollet and Nalini Singh, by 10 shots. Size certainly doesn’t matter in this case!
Back for the one-day Callaway event on Saturday, Vani got away to a slow start. Four-over after seven holes with a three-putt double bogey, she came back strongly to be one-under for the remaining holes. She clocked 33 stableford points, five better than runner up Vidushi Sinha in the combined girl’s A and B Category. “I have just played in Noida where the greens are slower so it took me a few holes to get used to the pace,” explained Vani.
Conditions were perfect at the Martin Hawtree course as over 100 junior golfers (quite a few with parents in tow) from the National Capital Region (NCR) turned up for some exciting weekend golf.
Enthusiasm was high and, at times, difficult to control. A young couple complained that their son was so keen to get to the golf course that he hadn’t slept for most of the night and insisted on getting to the venue at 8 am for an 11:45 am shotgun start!
The goodie bags (two of them) were a big hit. A Callaway cap, a sleeve of tour-quality golf balls and a golf ball and club cleaner went down very nicely with the kids, while the parents appreciated the health food hamper from GlaxoSmithKline.
Known more for a wrestling culture, Israna village near Panipat in Haryana is an unusual home for a golfer but see Shubham Jaglan hit a golf ball and any niggling doubts are laid to rest very quickly. All of seven-years-old, he is dominating the toddler’s category in golf these days. The form continued at Golden Greens with Shubham notching up 17 points for nine holes followed by Jai Bahl, aged six, on 11 points.
Besides the NCR, the Callaway Junior Tour is going to travel to Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune and Chandigarh. The winners and runners up from the tour events will play the tour championship from where two winners will feature in the Callaway Junior World Championship in San Diego, USA, next year.
Leaderboard:
Category A (boys) Rohan Govil (36 points, winner); Abhishek Kuhar (34 points, runner up)
Category B (boys) Piyush Sangwan (37 points, winner); Kartikey Vashisht (33 points, runner up)
Category A & B (girls) Vani Kapoor (33 points, winner); Vidushi Sinha (28 points, runner up)
Category C (boys) Apar Chaudhary (31 points, winner); Ribhav Kapur (29 points, runner up)
Category D (boys) Aryaman Mahant (26 points, winner); Aryan Chopra (23 points, runner up)
Category C & D (girls) Arushi Pandey (22 points, winner); Avita Khanna (19 points, runner up)
Category E (boys & girls) Shubham Jaglan (17 points, winner); Jai Bahl (11 points, runner up)