By

Mukesh Khosla

Jeev Milkha Singh….Conquering European fairways.

For celebrity sons it has often been a Hobson's choice. A one-way road to whatever they want to be, only one pair of shoes at the start of the road for them to slip into, which usually belongs to their fathers. Many accept this as pre-ordained and pick up their father's tracks.

Others like Jeev Milkha Singh go their own way and try and match up to the calibre of their celebrity fathers. In the case of Jeev, however, he has had two people to match up to---his father, the great Olympian Milkha Singh and mother, Nirmal Kaur, former captain of the Indian volleyball team.

For sometime now the 34-year-old Jeev has been striving hard to earn the same respect in the sporting arena as his celebrity parents. He has now succeeded in no uncertain terms by becoming the first Asian ever to lift the Volvo Masters in Europe at Club de Golf Valderrama in Spain.

The prize money of $ 840,855 (approx. Rs. 3.75 crores) is the highest won by an Indian in any individual sporting event. The win has also ensured Jeev a place in the Top-20 of the European Golf Tour with his ranking standing at 16. He has also entered the Top-100 club of world golf.

The rare Asian victory on the European Tour brought out the champagne in the Indian golfing circles coming especially at a time when European domination of the game seems complete.

"I am beyond myself with happiness," says Jeev and adds, "But winning doesn't come cheaply. There's a big price to pay in terms of hard work. Believe me I practice over eight hours every day. No Sundays. No holidays."

The year has surely been sweet on Jeev. Earlier in April he annexed the Volvo China Open in Beijing marking his first victory in almost a year. Before that his career had been going nowhere ever since his win at the 1999 Lexus International in Bangkok.

Exciting Tournament

"This has been the most exciting tournament of my career," says Jeev who credits the win to his hard work and his father’s encouragement. "When I began playing golf my father was so supportive of my decision that he would daily take me to the practice sessions which gradually started extending for hours. He stood by me like a rock."

Jeev won his first amateur tournament---the American Express Championship in Delhi when he was just 13. Ever since then there was no looking back. In 1993 he won the Southern Oklahoma State Open. In 1994 the Shinhan Donghae Open in South Korea and the following year the Philippine Classic and the Asian Matchplay Championships. A year later he annexed the Philip Morris Asia Cup and in 1999 crowned himself with the Lexus International.

But then came the lull and compounding his misery were his wrist injuries that kept him away from crucial tournaments. "It took me a long while to reach the Volvo Masters. That is why it was a great win as I had let so many tournaments go in the last few years," says Jeev and adds that he went into the contest with a reverse psychology, thinking that if he didn't win it didn't matter. That’s why victory was such a pleasant surprise.

A graduate in golf from the Abilene Christian University in the U.S., Jeev sees a steady rise in popularity of golf in India. "What we need are academies and colleges which tap talent and professionally train youth. But most importantly young people must get an easy access to golf courses. Only then will we get world class champions."

But he feels that in a decade or so golf would become as popular as cricket in India. "The media especially television is playing a big role in popularizing the sport. A lot of young people who watch the game on TV have been lured to it. There is also good money in it and young people have started realizing that golf can be a profession in itself and one can make a decent living out of it."

Now that he himself has become the highest ranked Indian in golf and the only Asian to win the Volvo masters in Europe, what more does he want to achieve? “I want to win the British Open and the U.S. Masters," says Jeev.

It would be best to take him seriously now that he has proved he has the determination and the tenacity of a world beater