CONVERSATIONS in Indian golf over the past few months have had one dominant subject: Gaganjeet Bhullar. So when sunny Thursday made the 20-year-old ask for extra water in the middle of his first round at the DLF Masters, the on-duty club worker’s innocuous questioning of the player’s name had the day's ‘biggest’ gallery bursting into a gaggle of laughs. By the time the shadows fell, Bhullar had managed to put his name noticeably high on leaderboards around the golf course.

Bhullar’s four-under 68 had him at the second spot, a shot shy of the score of another young hopeful who is just beginning to find his game on the domestic circuit. Mhow’s Om Prakash Chouhan has been a professional for five years, but the 23-year-old has only now begun to show the promise that his coach and mentor had foreseen. Senior pro Mukesh Kumar had followed Chouhan’s first attempts at golf at the army course where the latter’s father is a greens-keeper, and also noticed his early decision of giving the game up. He chose to act on it as quickly. “Mukesh said to me that I had no reason to worry about coaching, equipment or travelling costs,” Chouhan said on Thursday.

‘A little scary’

Chouhan had upset the current order of merit’s sixth-placed Himmat Singh Rai in the first round at the SRF Matchplay earlier this year, and followed that up with an eighth place at the Players’ Championship in Eagleton in August. The top spot, though, is all new. “I have not led before ever, and it does seem a little scary. But I know that if I keep driving and putting as I can, I won’t have any trouble keeping this up,” he said. Chouhan had six birdies and a bogey in his round of 67.

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