If the hockey teams had a vast majority of the Indians transfixed to their televisions on Thursday and Friday morning, Aditi Ashok did the same on Saturday morning. In contention for a historic medal until her final putt in the golf competition at the Tokyo Games, the gifted 23-year-old was the talk of the nation at breakfast time. From experts discussing her putts to people unfamiliar with the sport inquiring about birdies and eagles, it was one of those rare occasions when golf, still limited to the elite and highly ambitious caddies, was trending in the country.
Playing in her second Olympics, Aditi, with her wonderful exhibition over four days at the Kasumigaseki Country Club where she totalled 15-under 269 in tough conditions and finished just one shot off bronze medal winner Lydia Ko, showed the nation and the world what a precocious talent she has been since she first picked up a golf club as a five-year-old at the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC).
As a junior, she was shooting scores way better than girls older than her. In the amateur circuit, she was winning events for fun. She even tested herself against the pros in the domestic tour and excelled at the first attempt, triumphing when she was a mere 13 years old. Since then, Aditi has been hailed as a prodigy and the Bengalurean has lived up to it: recording three wins on the Ladies European Tour, youngest to qualify for the LPGA and a record 18 major appearances for an Indian golfer (male or female).
“We all knew how talented, gifted and hard-working Aditi was,” remarked renowned coach Tarun Sardesai in chat with DH. Aditi worked with Sardesai, who now runs his own academy and trains several aspiring golfers, briefly during her early before switching over to Steven Giuliano, an Australian settled in Kuala Lumpur.
“Aditi has been making heads turn in the country and her performance in Tokyo showed she can challenge the best. She may not have the distance as some of the Americans or Koreans but what she can’t achieve with the driver, she makes up with the putter. Short game is her strength and she barely fails in the department. Some of the putts and chips she pulls off under pressure is amazing. She’s just 23 and her peak is yet to come.”
Aditi’s game around the greens is years of cultivation. While a vast majority of the kids just kept hitting balls at the Karnataka Golf Association, Aditi would instead spend a vast majority of her time at the putting and chipping area. She realised very quickly that wins are made on the greens than the fairways. That facet was on full display in Tokyo where Aditi couldn’t measure up to gold medal winner Nelly Korda of the US and Lydia in terms of distance off the tee but was rock solid on the greens. She just had five bogeys, much lesser than Mone Inami (silver) and Lydia.
David D’Souza, a member of the Bangalore Golf Club, said he often tells kids to study Aditi if they want to improve. “I keep telling boys like Khalin Joshi and others to learn from Aditi. Not only has she analysed her strengths and weakness very early but she barely takes help from her caddie. She just needs a caddie to carry her bag, not to give lines and tips. Put her on any course and she’ll figure it out by herself. That’s not the case with some of the golfers here. Her mom (Maheshwari) caddied for her in Tokyo but Aditi looked like she barely needed any help. She was doing much of the reading by herself.”
Aditi may have missed the medal by a whisker but she gave her strong statement of her talent.