Past their prime? Golf 'oldies' banish the bogey

NEW DELHI: “Aab aapka time ho gaya.” This is not PGTI president Kapil Dev reiterating that IGPL mentor golfers like Jeev Milkha Singh, Shiv Kapur and SSP Chawrasia are ‘past their prime’. The words came from Jeev’s son Harjai, who was throwing a friendly challenge at his celebrated dad during Christmas week last year, when they played alongside each other, and told him that he his days were over.“I told him ‘baap baap hi rahega’ (the father will always be the boss),” Jeev recalled the week at the IGPL Invitational Sri Lanka, when he reminded his 15-year-old that experience has a way of asserting itself.

The lesson was reinforced on the leaderboard in Colombo when the 54-year-old outsmarted all the youngsters by breaking a 13-year-old title drought.“When he came up to me, I told him again ‘baap baap hi hota hain’,” he said with a hearty laugh, having proved his point.A symbol of longevity, Jeev is still traversing continents to silence his doubters. “Honestly I have no reaction to Kapil’s opinion, it’s a democratic world but, to me, age is just a number.”From Feb 20th, the global golfer begins his race against time with the Marbella Legends tournament in Spain, looking to play more than 30 tournaments in a season.“That’s 15 on the European Legends Tour, 12 on the Japan Seniors Tour, three, four on the Asian Tour — a good place to assess my fitness against the sprightly youngsters — and two, three on the IGPL,” he counts his steps.

“And all the while, the ambition is to win and stay healthy. If others can do it, why not me?“For me, Bernhard Langer is the benchmark; at 68, he is still winning. You will be surprised to see how competitive the (50-plus) senior tours are.”Jeev, meanwhile, sees himself swinging big time for another decade.SSP Chawrasia, 47, was hitting balls at the Royal Calcutta Golf Course in “perfect weather”, when he was caught off guard by the suggestion that he might be yesterday’s news.“I don’t believe that because I’m still playing on the Asian Tour, Jeev won a tournament last year, I’m still competitive and my focus is on winning in Asia. We are not retired. To be honest, the Asian Tour has a better field than PGTI. I’m not saying anything against him (Kapil) but I fail to understand his opinion,” said SSP.Dubai-based Shiv Kapur, who is currently designing a nine-hole golf course near Lonavala, has welcomed Kapil’s remark that “there is room for two leagues in India.”“I have a great deal of respect for paaji. That’s his opinion. I’ve been playing professional golf for 22 years now. Is Rohit Sharma at the prime of his career? No, but he’s still competitive. When MS Dhoni shows up at IPL, he’s still competitive. So, when I talk about people like Jeev or SSP, I would say that class is permanent,” said the man who grew up on the Delhi Golf Club greens.