Five years is a long time to be absent, but as Jeev Milkha Singh presses pause on his European Tour show to return home for the ‘national Open’ this year, the spotlight definitely has found its focus. The course and the players competing alongside haven’t stayed the same, but it is the changes in Jeev and his game that the Delhi crowd will try to spot when the clapperboard flaps at the Hero Honda Indian Open on Thursday.

But conspicuous by his absence will be local lad Shiv Kapur, who chose to give his ‘home’ tournament a miss. Jeev probably put it down mildly when he described this season as “average”, a season where he was supposed to reap fruits of that fabulous 2006 but one that has turned out to be a big letdown. “I have been playing well but not up to what I expected. The main problem has been my putting. Every putt par missed is a bogey and there have been far too many of them,” he said. “There have been some great days but the consistency is missing and that’s what I’m going to try get. It’s a four-day game after all.”

Having slipped to 77 in world rankings, Jeev has set his sights on regaining his top-50 spot now. “It is definitely a big goal to move into the world top-50. One lesson that I’ve learnt is to never stop trying.”

Having found success on the Japan Tour, conquered Asian courses, taken on the best in the business in America, and being a regular on the European circuit, there isn’t too many places that Jeev has not played golf in. So which was the toughest for him? “Well, links courses around Europe can be very hard, especially if the weather is not the best. But courses in the US are very challenging — they have hard greens and the rough makes it very difficult,” he said. No plans yet to get on the US PGA for the time though.

Insisting that it was the missing name in the resume of the ‘national Open’ that brought him to Delhi this time of the year, Jeev said he would try to tone down aggression on course where controlled play is what the doctor orders: “I’m not planning to take the driver out more than once or twice this week.” Meanwhile, Delhi Golf Club alumnus Shiv Kapur, is in Madrid, playing this week’s European Tour event Open de Madrid Valle Romano. Having earned full playing rights in Europe just this season, it was expected to be a watershed year for Kapur. A year blighted by injury, however, means that he is currently 97th on the order of merit and needs some good results towards the end to retain his card.

The DGC has seen many firsts for Indian golf, but in a first for the club this year, the course length has jumped the 7,000-yard mark after changes in the tee-box position of three holes.

The most significant is the par-three seventh, which has gone up to 230 yards from the earlier 182, making it that much harder. The par-four third is now 443 from 411 yards and the par-four tenth is up to 474 from 428. The green is hard, but the rough has also been raised considerably, so the surprises may not only be for the first-timers here.

The pro-am event this year has a lot of political colour. Farooq Abdullah playing with Jeev Milkha Singh, Robert Vadra in Jyoti Randhawa’s company and General JJ Singh teaming up with Gaurav Ghei for the pre-event fun session. Kapil Dev gets Aussie legend Peter Senior’s company and Milkha Singh will try keep pace with last year’s domestic tour winner Ashok Kumar.