Rohan Chowdhury in Hangzhou
A bright, sunny and windy day at the Westlake Golf Course, where India were in contention for a gold medal in the women’s individual golf event. Aditi Ashok made millions wake up at 5am in the morning during Tokyo 2020, but missed a podium finish by a whisker. It was Aditi in action again on the final day of the individual event, where she started off with a seven-stroke lead over the second-placed golfer from China.
From the very beginning of the day, Aditi didn’t seem at her very best with a few ‘bad swings’, in her words, that sent the ball off the fairway into the rough and also into the bunkers. With four bogeys and one double-bogey, and just one birdie, she fell behind Yubol Arpichaya, the eventual gold medalist from Thailand.
With a four-round total of 271, 17 under par, Aditi finished two strokes behind Yubol, and had to settle for silver.
“When you hit bad shots, you can get away with that sometimes,” she said. “You hit them in the wind, it gets even worse. That’s what happened.”
With such a big lead, all Aditi needed was to stay calm and maintain the momentum. “Yesterday was a great day for me, and winning was always on my mind,” she said. “It was not a silver won, but a gold lost for me. I was leading by seven, and it was my tournament to lose and I basically did that.”
But from every loss, there can be a lesson and with Paris 2024 coming up in less than a year, the experience in Hangzhou will be crucial for Aditi to get into the zone in multi-sport events. “For most golfers, the Majors are the most important tournaments to win, but in a country like India, these multi-disciplinary events are watched mostly, which makes it important for us to do well in these tournaments,” said Aditi. Though the competition might not be of the same calibre as at the golf majors, the fact that these events are followed in India makes them even more important from the perspective of the Indian athletes. “I think this silver will make golf popular in India, and hopefully in the next few years, we’ll have more of these performances and also in Paris next year,” added Aditi.
Talking about the importance of this medal in boosting confidence for Paris 2024, she said, “Paris is ten months away and I don’t know how my form will be after ten months, but winning this medal will obviously help because it allows you to get used to the whole environment of staying in the athletes village and staying with the team and everything around it. So yes, the experience here in Hangzhou will help me prepare for Paris.”
We said during Tokyo 2020, when Aditi missed out on the podium finish, that it was also a major achievement to wake India up at 5 in the morning to watch golf. On Sunday, it was a 4am start back in India, and people watched to see her on the top step of the podium. “I didn’t think finishing 4th in Tokyo would have such an impact, but it did,” said Aditi. “And today also, people woke up to see the match. It feels nice, and hopefully this medal will put golf on the radar even more.
“In India, cricket is the main sport and other sports have to fight for their space. Golf has a small percentage. So it means a lot to me. I wished I had played better and got the gold, because people woke up to see me win the gold.”