Greetings from my homeland in India. Welcome to Delhi Golf Club for the DGC Open, with a $500,000 purse, where I will be competing this week.
It is great to have tournament golf back in India with the Asian Tour. This is the first time international tournament golf is being played at DGC for almost four years due to Covid-19 and the golf course redesign.
We met up on Tuesday with Gary Player who is showcasing his redesign of the historical Delhi golf course at this tournament.
I was always going to be Player’s harshest critic on the finished product. It is not easy to redesign a golf course that was originally laid out in the 1930s, with a few tweaks along the way.
I must say, he has done a great job with the redesign, keeping the classic design elements of DGC, while enhancing the green and bunker complexes. He has toughened it up, so there is more of a premium on accurate approach shots, with raised greens and surrounding run off areas. Strategy has always been key to playing DGC. That mantra has been retained. If you want to be aggressive you will hit your driver perhaps four or five times every round. If you want to be defensive, you will not hit your driver once all week. It is nice to play a golf course that is not just about bombing it off the tee at every opportunity. This week we are playing just 6,912 yards, I cannot remember the last time we played a tournament course at less than 7,000 yards.
I first played DGC when I was just nine, three months after I took up the game, I played in the Asia-Pacific Junior Tournament and shot 116 in my first competitive round and I strutted around the clubhouse thinking I had made it in the game.
I am doing a fireside chat with Player later on Wednesday on his generation and how the game of golf has changed — and how it has stayed the same. I am looking forward to an entertaining evening.
I am excited that MasterCard — my sponsors — have announced a five-year agreement to support the DGC Open, with increased prize money great news for us all.
It is remarkable that Player is now 86 years old and still has all that energy and passion for life and golf, he still does all his daily fitness routines, including his trick of holding two clubs in his fingers that no one can match.
I am feeling good about my game and looking forward to playing in front of my home crowd this week with the first round starting on Thursday.
After this week I have a few sponsor commitments in India and then off to Thailand to play on the back-to-back Asian Tour and Ladies European Tour co-sanctioned events in mid-April.
I am playing this week along with my fellow Dubai residents, countryman and Jeev Milkha Singh and South Africa’s MG Keyser, before Jeev starts his senior career next week on the European Tour’s Legends Tour.
