Sitting in his hotel room in Malaysia, golfer Jyoti Randhawa has just come back from a hard day’s work on the greens. It has been a lacklustre two years for him, but he has bounced back with two top-20 finishes in his last three tournaments, the Malaysian Open, the Panasonic Open in India and the Thailand Golf Championship. His mind is, however, occupied with something else: come August, Randhawa will take part in the trap event of the pre-national shooting championship.
Randhawa, 39, harbours a double Olympic dream. Golf will become an Olympic discipline in 2016 and he wants to participate in that as well as shooting. But why all of a sudden the interest in shooting? “It hasn’t been an impulsive decision,” he says. Coming from an army background, Randhawa says he was fascinated by guns since he can remember. Growing up in cantonments he has always been surrounded with guns and says that he can shoot both skeet and double trap . “But trap is which I enjoy doing the most,” he says.
He is an adventure sports junkie, has an enviable collection of superbikes and was a very good swimmer as well. But in shooting he has been helped by his brother-in-law and shooter Digvijay Singh. “He has been of great support to me and I will be participating with him at the pre-national,” informs Randhawa. As a recreational shooter he has been shooting at the Tuglakabad shooting range in Delhi with the likes of Mansher Singh as well. But that was for fun, the serious business begins now. Navin Jindal is a good friend of Randhawa and he helped him to enter the shooting championship from Chhattisgarh. He lists himself in the list of shooters as “Jyotinder Singh”.
“I was quite bad at the first event I entered in,” he says. He shot on average rounds between nine and 13 out of 25, way under par. He has a long way to go and is confident he can compete at the national level to begin with. He is a tad nervous but knows that the kind of pressure he has dealt with in golf will hold him in good stead.
But what about golf? “I am not giving up on golf and will be playing it for the next ten years,” he says. Age is not an issue for him in both sports but he is clear that he doesn’t want to play on the Seniors’ Tour in golf, which is still 11 years away from him. “Both golf and shooting are what I call mind sports. Age is not a barrier at all,” he says. When he started shooting it was more for taking his mind off golf. A few rounds in the shooting range helped him to relax.
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Randhawa is aware that his golf career has been on a bit of downward spiral. He was forced off the tour for 12 months because of an injury. “I am not too happy with my performances but I am confident of being back to my best,” he says. He is still passionate about golf and that is evident in the manner he speaks about the sport. It is still his first love and even though he is taking up shooting, he doesn’t intend to slack in golf. “In my mind I know I can compete at both the sports. Shooting will not affect my golf,” he says. He turned a pro golfer in 1994 and the last two decades on the tour have been hugely satisfying. He has ten professional titles against his name — most coming on the Asian Tour — and has been ranked in the top 100 world players several times in the last eight years. He is delighted to see the interest in golf shown by youngsters and says that 2016 could be a good year for golf. “The Olympics is a huge motivation for all of us,” he says.
His target is to take part in both the disciplines and he is aware of the challenge that each one of them poses. “I am a fighter and I won’t give up on them. I love challenges and to represent India in two disciplines will be a dream come true,” he says. It is an unlikely dream, though, he admits.
But his experience as a golfer, he hopes, will be of help to him. “I have handled pressure all my life and am mentally strong enough to play two sports,” he says in confident tones.
It does seem a bit improbable that he can do well at both sports at the same time. Although many athletes have played at two sports at a time they haven’t been too successful. Former England batsman Denis Compton played for the England cricket team and for Arsenal football club in the 1930s and 1940s. At the Olympics there have been “dual Olympians” as well like Brazilian Joao Goncalves Flilho in the 1960s (swimming and water polo), or Canadian athlete Clara Hughes as recently as 1996 Olympics (cycling and speed skating) and a few others in equestrian and pentathlon.
Randhawa says that he is aware that he might not be able to take part in both the events but that surely is his target. He has four years to hone his shooting skills and prove his mettle. In golf, there are no question marks over his ability. It’s the challenge — an incredibly difficult one — to do well in both at the same time which is motivating him. “I might not succeed but it won’t be because of the lack of effort,” he says with a steely determination in his voice. From shooting birdies and eagles, he is entering a shooting range of a different kind. Will he hit the target?
