A pro among amateurs

Professionals will tell you how big the chasm between amateur and professional golf can be.

"When you stand on a putt on the 18th hole on the final day and suddenly think how much money you could win or lose by holing or missing that one single five-foot putt, your knees start shaking and legs become jelly," Jeev Milkha Singh had once said.

The best of golfers can get unnerved with such thoughts, and which is one of the biggest hurdle amateur golfers have to overcome as they move from amateur to pro ranks in the sport.

Yet there are some players who boldly attack every hole and play as if they have no nerves. Ashok Kumar, when he moved from amateur to pro ranks was one such player, and now Harinder Gupta, still an amateur, fits that description.

Last month, Harinder, barely 20 years old and already the amateur champion at the Indian Open, became the fourth amateur to win a pro event on the Hero Honda Indian PGA Tour. He did not get to bank the cheque of Rs 1.6 lakh, which he would have earned as a matter of course if he had been a pro. But the win did signal that he is ready to make that shift to pro ranks.

Harinder was not born into golf. In fact, it was the least likely of all games that he could have come in contact with. Born in Gora Bazaar village in Kushinagar in UP, Harinder was the fifth in a family of seven brothers and sisters. His favourite game involved catapults and aiming at birds sitting on tree branches. He would often nail them and be the star among friends.

He did go to school, but that was a mere ritual. His parents, Gaya Shah and Nagwati Devi, barely managed to make ends meet with the buffaloes they had and the small piece of land they tilled.

Seeing no future for the boy, whose only aim in life was riding buffaloes and killing birds, they packed him off to his elder brother, a vegetable vendor who lives in Kishangarh, a small village near Chandigarh. That was the first big shift in Harinder's life.

He arrived to help his brother, who insisted that Harinder study and try to get the ultimate job of jobs "" a job in government.

But fate had something else in store. The Chandigarh Golf Club was close by "" about three kilometres away from where Harinder and his brother used to live and work. He made friends with some boys who worked as caddies in the club. Curious to see what the work entailed, Harinder learnt they carried bags for the sahibs who play a strange game called golf.

Soon he started going to the club, carrying bags and earning some money. Then he started imitating the sahibs' shots with a makeshift club, made out of an iron rod. Since caddies were not allowed on the course, the boys would indulge in their fantasies late in the evening or on the streets outside.

The next step was chancing upon a broken club head. To that, he attached an iron pipe and he had his first golf club! He then started 'playing', if one could call it that, with the other boys. They would have their own 'pro' championships with each boy chipping in Rs 10 and the winner taking all, which would sometimes run up to Rs 200.

School by now was a forgotten pastime. The elder brother had given up on Harinder pursuing academics when small bits of money started coming from his job as a caddie.

Luck was on Harinder's side as some club members, seeing his earnestness, allowed him to swing the club now and then. He was even allowed to enter some junior events and he shone "" but winning was still some way off.

But by now, caddying and perhaps playing later on, was the life that beckoned Harinder. With the help of the Club and some generous members for whom he caddied, he got his first set for Rs 6,000. By 1998, he was a regular on local junior events and, in 1999, he entered the national stage when he won four junior events.

Emerging as one of the top juniors in the country, ONGC selected him for one of the jobs they had for golf. He got a monthly stipend of Rs 7,000, a princely sum his family had never even dreamt he would earn. Still in his teens, he started representing India in amateur events and is now among the top three amateurs in the country.

A steady player, he does admit he has thought of turning pro, but the expense of travelling and lodge while on Tour is something that holds him back. Once he turns pro, a job or stipend like the one he gets from ONGC might come to an end. Many players have lost such opportunities after turning pro as companies generally don't encourage professional golfers to be on their staff.

Harinder, the only amateur to make the cut at the Indian Open, emerged triumphant at the Hero Honda Indian PGA in Chandigarh, his adopted hometown.

He finished ahead of seasoned pros like Gaurav Ghei, Harmeet Kahlon, Mukesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar and Ashok Kumar. He got only a trophy, and a mere look at the huge cheque, which if he had been a pro, would have been his.

He admits he wants to turn pro but now more than ever he knows what it takes to be a big and successful golfer. Bigger cheques can come his way if he keeps playing as well he did last month in Chandigarh.

And what's more he could become one of India's leading pros. He only needs to look at the likes of Ashok Kumar, barely 21, and one of India's best right now for inspiration, and at veterans like Vijay and Mukesh who have all successfully transformed their lives from being caddies to top pros. Watch out for Harinder Gupta "" he will be in the headlines more often in the future.