Digvijay’s wheel comes full circle

The 44-year-old, who last one a big event, his best so far, in 2012 in the Panasonic Open, is not doing all that well in the Chennai Open Golf Tournament and probably he has realised that enough is enough and that is why he has decided to hang up his boots soon.

“Sooner or later, I have to do it,” said Digvijay in a chat with DTNext at Crowne Plaza, the team hotel of the event. “Jyoti (Randhawa) and I have already started The Ultimate Foundation in Gurgaon, an academy for the junior golfers. I am looking at 5000 kids getting screened over the next few months, so that we can look at 100 for the academy.” 

Co-incidentally Jyoti was Digvijay’s classmate and later his brother-in-law, having married his sister Chitrangada Singh, a Bollywood actress and divorced since then. It was Jyoti who introduced Digvijay to golf and his father’s army background helped him get his baptism to the sport through the Army Golf Course in Meerut.

Digvijay is modest when he says golf players are not popular like cricketers or even actresses like his sister but he said he enjoyed his time in the greens and would like to contribute something back to golf and probably his next passion, skydiving.

Digvijay’s best year was 2002 when he won three events, Royal Challenge Grand Prix and Colorplus Open and came second on the Order of Merit. “I came close to winning in some Asian Tour events and missed out but the misses are not always remembered, it is the win that matters,” said Digvijay, who rates the Panasonic win in 2012 higher than the many cuts he had in the Bilt Open in the last 10 years. 

Digvijay feels technology has done wonders to the development of the sport as the scorer are getting lower these days. “Twenty years ago five-under or six-under used to be the norm for the top but nowadays it is going into the double digits,” Digvijay signed off.