Every year, in the month of January, the Indian men’s golf circuit goes through a migratory period.
Amateur golfers from across the country and a few other nations plunge into the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) qualifying school event with hopes of acquiring playing rights on the professional tour.
However, only a few survive.
And Aryan Roopa Anand, equipped with a calm mindset, not only survived this frantic race to turn pro but surpassed 382 starters to win the Q-school by six shots and secure an A-card (34 players get full playing rights) held recently in Kolkata.
The 21-year-old, by virtue of being one of the top amateurs in the country, was handed a direct entry into the final stage, that had 127 golfers, played over four days of 18 holes each. Aryan carded rounds of 64-63-65-68 to finish 20-under 260 on the par-70 course.
He followed it up by notching his first top-10 finish in his debut tournament as a pro at the PGTI Players Championship on the same course last week to take home his first cheque of Rs 2 lakh.
But the Mysuru-born Bengaluru boy isn’t someone to get intimidated by the magnitude of a big tour with prize money.
“At the end of the day, you have to play golf. Regardless of it being the junior, amateur or a professional event,” he explains.
“People tend to make too many changes just because they have moved up the ladder or made the switch. My mindset and process has always been about going out there and trying to shoot my best score. Of course, the level of competition is much harder and the scoring is going to be a lot lower. But these are the challenges that will get me to where I eventually want to be,” says Aryan, who trains at the Tarun Sardesai Golf Academy in Kolar.
This kind of composure comes from the fact that Aryan understood in his early teens the fickleness of golf - where one’s best round on a given day might not be good enough after all as a fellow competitor could have tackled the course a tad bit better.
“No matter the result, we need to keep putting in the work day in and day out and hope that things work themselves out,” he adds.
Furthermore, golfers tend to use the words such as manifest, visualise and simulate so frequently that it almost seems like they are dreaming all the time. Not overdoing this is another aspect the youngster has understood well.
“All of it and self-belief are extremely important for any athlete. But none of these is good enough if you cannot focus on the now and put in the work.
“I mean, one can sit at home and manifest that ‘I will be on the PGA Tour in 5 years’ but if I don’t go out there and work hard, none of the mental preparation is going to make sense. My focus is on putting in the hard hours and refining the skills along with having a strong mindset.”
Aryan has made a statement with his performance before and during the transition from an amateur to a professional golfer. With his feet firmly on the ground, he now looks ahead to experience every possibility golf has to offer.