For three days, in a quiet corner of the Tokyo suburbs, an Indian girl was raising the roof. As they enjoyed the fourth day, sports fans in India – and NRIs and PIOs around the world – flocked to watch at 5 a.m., refreshing leaderboard scores, watching birdies and bogeys, and went on for five hours. wondering what bunker they'd been hiding in.
Aditi Ashok, 23 years old and ranked 200th in the world, fought through a stacked ground before missing a birdie and crashing out of the medal race in the final two holes. India's torturous finish at the Olympics and fourth place is a recurrent, intimidating topic. Ashok finds a place on her now. But for an Indian golfer to come close to that medal, she has already lost a putt in history.
This was his second Olympics. The first came two months after finishing high school. She was the youngest golfer at the Rio ground and was eliminated for two of the four rounds before finishing in the top eight. His social media became a rage overnight.
For game watchers and even first-timers, Ashoka's Putt Game is worth a watch. Her reading of Saag is a matter of envy among her peers. "She rolls really well," Nelly Korda, world No. 1, who won gold for the USA, said of her. "He has some kind of swag when putting green and he owns it."
Casting is almost a game in itself. And there's a reason why Ashoka is so incredible: He learned the game upside down. At the age of five, he and his parents used to have breakfast at a restaurant in front of a driving range in Bengaluru. None of them had played the game before or thought of trying it out. Since there was no golf club in his size, he was given a cut-down putter. The first thing he learned after that was not to break the drive but to sink the put.
She kept going back to replenish herself in other parts of the game. She will slowly fix the pieces together, such as the 1000-piece Frank Lighthouse puzzle she proudly showed off on social media last year during lockdown.
Growing up, she was an unusual teenager. Former Indian golf amateur Nonita Lal Qureshi told ESPN, "If Aditi had a problem with bunker shots, she would spend hours in the bunker." "She was inspired even as a young kid. I don't know many 12-year-olds who are willing to put that kind of commitment into sports. She never really let any of the typical teen distractions, by the way, get in."
By the age of 13, he had started beating Indian professionals. She became the second Indian woman to tour the LPGA and the first to win the Ladies European title at the Women's India Open.
For all her success, she has largely been single.
“Her parents have her back, so it has been a haven for her,” adds Nonita. "Plus, there's little support. It might not be easy to travel to a different country every week for a tournament without a lot of support."
Ashok's bag usually carries his father Gudlamani, but this time he chose his mother for the job. While her father may technically be a stronger caddy, the occasional golfer seeks solace amid a cocoon of concentration in 72 rounds over four days.
The pandemic became like a sand trap for Ashoka. Stranded in India during the lockdown and hungry for access to courses and tournaments, she ironed a foot mat into a curtain hung on a clothesline on the roof of her Bangalore home. She managed to practice chips and puts indoors, though she had no way of hitting drivers or wedges. She also gave ambiguity a shot, practicing writing words and sentences with her non-dominant left hand. He himself caught the virus in May, which took away some of his strength and affected the length of his shots.
"She wasn't worried about the extra yardage or everyone bombing her," says Nonita. "It's a cool way to look at it. She's really focused and can come across as someone with a serious mind. Not many people know, she's quite the imitator."
Ashok has also taken some mental leaps between Rio and Tokyo. If she was a rookie five years ago, being a seasoned campaigner on tour taught her to hold herself up against any big name. Champika Sayal attests to the graph. The General Secretary of the Women's Golf Federation of India was present in Rio during Ashoka's Olympic debut.
"Earlier, she was trying very hard in the final round. Now she has overcome the pressure bug. She has started enjoying her game, has mental strength and ability to fight back."
After the third round on Friday, Ashok told Olympic Channel that even though no one in India really expected her to be in the medal race, she is trying to get there. Eventually, she got a bit younger, but perhaps not without some kind of attention to her sport in India.
"It's huge for women's golf in India," says Sayal. "When you have a home player that comes so close to a medal, it changes the belief system. It's very different from looking at Americans or Europeans who are doing well on the Tour, because we don't have what they want." They have. In our time, we were told that women should be housewives and not belong to the courses. Aditi has children, parents and people who have never seen a round of golf before in India, Wake up to it this weekend. Isn't that unbelievable?"
This is Ashoka's way of telling his country why golf and its women players can do it with a little more love. To make sure we're listening, he said it with a fight and a fourth place.