03 September 2021: The faculty of Engineering tends to be a blackhole for Indian sport. It sucks in millions of middle-class Indian children into a career in coding, often at the expense of their aspirations. Some of those dreams involve practicing sport. On Friday though, Engineering had a small role to play in a historic 59 on the PGTI Tour. Even though, preferred lies and a shortened course, may take the sting out of the card officially, Kartik Sharma can celebrate shooting the number and leaping 27 spots to set the target halfway through the second round.
Ironically, Kartik has Engineering to thank for his fortuitous journey into golf. As a little kid, Kartik was busy dreaming about Wimbledon, playing national level age group tennis. When Kartik was 11, his elder brother Roopak chose to pursue a degree in Engineering. The little boy considered his choices and preferred to play golf closer home than pack his bags for a tennis academy away from his parents.
His father, Sunil Sharma, is an army officer. He was posted to the base at Nabha in the Patiala district of Punjab, and a golf course was conveniently located right near the family quarters.
Kartik, a student of Anitya Chand on the DLF Golf Excellence Program, put his lessons to the test on the rain affected course at the Hyderabad Golf Club. The softened course, some good advice from his caddie and a steady hand with his irons helped Kartik spin off four birdies on the front and five more on the way home for a memorable 59.
Preferred lies and a shortened course, playing to par at 68 means that the number will not gain significance, but that will not take away from a stupendous effort from the rookie golfer who turned pro at the beginning of 2020.
At the 16th, Kartik was considering a nine iron to reach the green from 155 yards. His caddie suggested that a soft eight might be a better option. And so it proved to be, as he was left with a 10 foot birdie putt. The 20-year-old was making the most of the rained-out greens, as he did when he rolled to the centre of the cup from about 25 feet on the 12th hole.
“It is certainly one of my best rounds of golf,” said an evidently thrilled Kartik. “All parts of my game were working today. I could take advantage of my low-ball flight today and attack the flag, knowing that the ball wasn’t going to roll too much.”
“In the end, I am not sure if I am happier about going nine-under for the clubhouse lead or looking at that magical number (59) on my card. I am very happy overall and hope to continue playing well through this weekend. It will be an interesting experience for me to play in the last few groups and I am looking forward to it.”
The Gurugram based golfer will start the weekend at 10-under 129, a stroke ahead of Yashas Chandra. The Mysuru golfer was bleeding resilience after a gritty second round 65, architected mainly through grim determination, staying in the moment through the rough and tumble around the Hyderabad Golf Club.
The 26-year-old was drawn into golf, piqued by his father’s recreational interest in the game. His younger brother, an Engineering graduate from the JC College in Mysuru is also an aspiring golfer. Despite missing left through much of the day and painful double after finding water on the seventh hole, Yashas kept his head down to grind out a satisfying round.
He constantly found himself rescuing the ball from the penal rough at this monsoon fed course. Even though 65 might seem like a just reward for his struggles, perhaps being able to let his cool temperament prevail might be his biggest gain from a grey day in Hyderabad.
Yashas repaired a three-putt bogey on the first with back to back birdies. After enduring a five on the par-3 seventh, he extracted three strokes from the course in four holes from the ninth to go two-under. He layered his gains with a nice birdie from ten feet on the fifteenth to sign off for the day at 9-under 130.
Khalin Joshi moved into fourth with an impressive 63, enough to bring him to eight under through two rounds. Viraj Madappa shot 64 and moved alongside the first-round leaders, who were yet to get on the course at that time. Kshitij Naveed Kaul also shot 63 to gain 21 spots on the leaderboard and barge inside the top ten heading into an exciting weekend.
Overnight leaders Manu Gandas and Pukhraj Singh Gill began their round among the afternoon groups, and seem set to chip away at the clubhouse leaders.