Good old Ashok! Pioneering Old Afternoon Golfer

CHENNAI: “Can a man be so good? ” That was the question on the minds of all who knew Ashok Viswanathan, when the sad news of his sudden demise made its way through the social media. It was befitting that Ashok breathed his last, after hugging his wife Lakshmi one last time, on August 21, a day before Madras Day. One of the founding fathers of Tamil Nadu Golf Federation (TNGF), Ashok’s contribution to recreational golf is nothing if not historic.

A popular, well-informed man, Ashok could speak on a range of subjects, from sports to science with clarity, humour and incisiveness. When JD Vance appeared beside Donald Trump, he was the first to trace Vance’s wife Usha’s connections to Chennai. His statistical recall and knowledge of sports, specially golf, cricket and cricketers, was also legendary.

STOCK EXCHANGE GOLFERS

Ashok, one of the architects of TNGF, was instrumental in setting up the bye laws, and putting in place a slot booking system, among other things. However, it was as the Founder of Old Afternoon Golfers (OAG) in the late 1980s (he himself said 1986/87), that he came to be celebrated as the Pitamah of amateur golfers. To form a group to play regularly, one needs members (with a couple of ready standbys), who are good players with robust handicaps, partnership abilities and integrity. And the group coordinator should be a facilitator and a moderator at the same time. Ashok ticked all the boxes.

STOCK OPTIONS

After his M Sc from IIT Madras, Ashok chased a post-doctoral degree at the University of Notre Dame, USA. He returned to Chennai to take over his father’s stock broking company and soon became a committee member at the MSE. A people’s person, he had the ability to forge lifelong friendships, says TNGF’s Treasurer, R Ramassubramanian (Ramasubbu to all). Ashok and Ramasubbu, also a stock broker, were also part of the MSE cricket team. Later Ashok moved to golf. Soon, the stock of golf peaked, with many share market pros, including Jayanand Govindaraj, A Chandrasekhar , Govind Parikh, Joe and many more, investing their time in golf.

GALLERY

Ashok started OAG with Ramasubbu, Sankarakrishnan and Ramana. Soon, N Chandrasekhar, Ramasubbu’s brother Kumaar, lawyer Rangarajan, media head honcho RC Venkatesh (of Star and later Zee) were all part of the group. Banker-turned stock broker Jayanand Govindaraj, S Ramamurthy and S Lakshman of Enfield India, Dilip Narasimhan, MD, Brakes India, Philipose of Asia Tobacco, DK Singh the then MD Of Nesco, Major Dr Raghavan and VK Narendra, were some of the prominent OAG golfers.

Ashok himself once said that the inimitable Ram Ramesh (see the column on him by me published in this newspaper), along with Rabi Venkatesan and former cricketer S Venkataraghavan played regularly and that Ram Ramesh suggested they all play together. Viji (R Vijayaraghavan, son of neuro surgeon Dr B Ramamurthi) would decide on the handicap for the golfers, based on a handicapping system perfected by Ashok (while a board handicap based on cards dropped after a round exists, for tournaments, most four balls prefer to follow an alternate one for casual golf).

Ashok’s OAG soon gained stature as an eclectic one in which everyone—even those who were not regular members of OAG-- expressed a keen interest to play in his group. N Srinivasan, President TNGF, KC Raghunathan, Associate Secretary, TNGF and RK Jhaver, Secretary, TNGF were part of another playing group, but also played with OAG and vice versa.

Raising the competitive level among club golfers further, Ashok introduced one along the lines of the Ryder Cup, and it was informally held for over ten years.

ASHOK UNIVERSITY

Ashok was of the firm view that one had to have a strong foundation, in whatever one undertook. Ramasubbu recalls Ashok teaching him the ropes not only in golf but also on the stock market. “As a young share broker, he felt I needed to understand how AGMs are conducted and so took me to Hindupur in Andhra for a small AGM. He guided me on how to analyse the balance sheet, what questions to ask, how to evaluate,” recalls Ramasubbu. He also recalls partnering Ashok against Vijayvaradhan Reddy and Arun Murugappan for the Parthasarathy Salver

and emerging runners-up. “The next morning Ashok joked that we had done not too badly considering the weather was 41. 5 degree Celsius. Official gauge said 42 degree C, but Ashok factored in the golf course being closer to Meenambakkam than Nungambakkam. He was always coming up with gems like that,” adds Ramasubbu

SYSTEMS IN PLACE

Rules have to be framed for the larger good of all and should be followed by all players,” Ashok told me once. In the early days of OAG, despite lack of robust telecommunication tools, Ashok made it a rule that anyone withdrawing had to communicate it in time. “If you missed a game twice without informing, you were benched for two weeks,” says Major Dr Raghavan.

ASHOK CHAKRA

Ever appreciative of achievers, Ashok, in his personal capacity, used to present a trophy to a golfer getting a Hole In One . Good karma comes back. Last year, on September 13, Ashok made a Hole In One on Hole 4 and it was the turn of OAGians to return the compliment.

A LIEUTENANT AND A GENTLEMAN

A golf course is where passions run high on all eighteen holes, which is why someone invented the nineteenth hole. Ashok was one who could not be pushed, but paying back with unpleasantness was alien to him. He simply internalized his feelings, and moved on, a quality many of the golfers have appreciated, as news of his passing spread. Ashok and his equally well liked wife Lakshmi, had the exquisite gift of putting anyone at ease in a social gathering. Both were into philanthropy in a quiet way. A couple of years ago, when a caddy mentioned the hardship of traveling by train for a tournament, Ashok donated a hefty sum, and asked the caddy to take a flight.

Jayanand, who has been a close family friend of the Ashoks’ for decades, sums it up when he says, “Ashok is the gold standard when it comes to people. There is simply no one like him.”