Raj tees off with uncle Jyoti on the course where it all started

A cursory look at his background and one is tempted to think he was destined to be a golfer. As a kid, however, the closest Raj Randhwa — the nephew of one of India’s top pros, Jyoti — came to playing the sport was whacking golf balls with a baseball bat to a course right next to his home.

“I used to love baseball and was very good at it,” says the US-born Raj, who is participating in the Asian Tour SAIL Open which teed off in Gurgaon on Wednesday.

“I lived in the States for 10 years and never played golf, though may seem surprising since our house in Los Angeles was so close to a golf course.”

Getting him hooked to the sport required a stroke of brilliance, albeit by uncle Jyoti when the latter lifted his first Indian Open at Gurgaon’s Classic Golf Resort in 2000.

“I was 12 back then,” recalls Raj, now 21. “Incidentally, that was also the first time I stepped into a golf course. That day, I fell in love with golf. The greens, the fairways, the atmosphere, almost everything about it,” he adds.

Soon enough he was hitting the ball, this time with a club, at the Air Force Golf Club.

The late start meant he couldn’t impress much in the junior events but made rapid strides as an amateur and turned pro in 2007. And nine years later, he’s back where it all started, in the midst of action and not on the periphery as he participates in the SAIL Open. And he posted a decent finish in the event last year, his first on the Asian Tour.

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