NEW DELHI: After seven long years, Indian golf will have its own full-fledged national squad in gentlemen, ladies and junior boys and girls categories which will participate across all major international amateur competitions, including the prestigious World Team event, British Championships and Queen Sirikit Cup, among others.
India was without the national squad since 2016 owing to Indian Golf Union’s (IGU) derecognition by the sports ministry and its failure to hold the annual general meeting (AGM). The federation held its AGM and elections in December 2022 and is now headed by Brijinder Singh as its president.
The IGU – the governing body of the sport in the country – has also done away with the practice of holding trials to select the Indian team for international events and, instead, will be sending the national squad members to such global competitions. The trials will only be conducted to select the Indian golf contingent for the Asian Games and CWG, as mandated by the ministry.
For the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou, the Indian Golf Union (IGU) will be holding trials from April 24 to 28 in Kolkata. The sport will be making its debut at the CWG in 2026 in Victoria, Australia.
Apart from it, the country will have its first-ever high-performance centre in golf, which will come up at a cost of Rs 3-4 crore in one of the Indian cities this year and house the national team members. The plans are also afoot to restructure the National Golf Academy of India (NGAI), which is headquartered in Chandigarh, and to have a world-class regional NGAIs spread across four zones.
These details were shared with TOI by the IGU after announcing a 10-member national squad for the gentlemen amateur following the conclusion of the Delhi NCR golf championships at the Noida golf course. The members include Yuvraj Singh, Shaurya Bhattacharya, Milind Soni, Jaiveer, Rohit, Vinamra Anand, Rohit, Harimohan Singh, Anand Singh Ahlawat and Rajesh Kr Gautam. The golfers were selected based on their performances in a one-year cycle since April last year and, as per their standings in the Order of Merit (OMM).
It’s been learnt that the IGU officials recently held a detailed discussion with Dominic Wall and Neal Graham of the R&A (a colloquial name for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews), which is the highest governing body of golf worldwide , where these major initiatives were discussed and agreed upon.
The need to have a national squad in gentlemen, ladies and junior divisions was felt after looking at the exceptional results achieved by the golfers from Asian countries mainly South Korea and Japan.
“Their amateur golfers have been doing extremely well on the circuit. So, the IGU also felt the need to have its own national squad. We have named the members in the gentlemen amateur and will be announcing the team in the ladies and junior categories very soon. These golfers will be provided regular training, tactical and technical support at a dedicated golfing centre with the support of latest equipment and elite support staff. Later, they will be housed at the high-performance centre once it becomes operational,” IGU director general (DG), Maj Gen (retd) Bibhuti Bhushan, informed this publication.
As per the new squad policy, the international events have been segregated in two categories wherein the squad members will be divided as ‘A’ (1-5th ranked players) and ‘B’ (6-10th ranked) teams. The ‘A’ team will travel to all major international events including World Amateur Team Championships, Queen Sirikit Cup, Nomura Cup, British Championships, Australian Championships, Australian Masters of the Amateurs and Women's Asia Pacific. The ‘B’ squad will participate in other world ranking amateur tournaments namely Dutch Championships, Italian Championships, Thailand Championships, NSW Championships, Indonesia Championships, South African Championships, African Championships and Singapore Championships.
