Chandigarh: Champion golfer Yuvraj Singh Sandhu’s eyes turn moist when he recollects JCO Valinder Singh ‘Bijlee’ from his father’s unit, the 51 Engineers Regiment. So named Bijlee for his swiftness in the field, the dedicated JCO in charge of cleaning up the ponds at the Army’s golf course in Dimapur, Nagaland, would ensure that the balls retrieved from the watery depths would be kept exclusively for Yuvraj. Yuvraj was but five years old then but whacking golf irons with such dexterity that it drew aplomb from then 3 Corps Commanders at Dimapur, Lt Gens Zameer Uddin Shah and later M S Dadwal, who noted there was “something extraordinary in this boy’s golf swing”.
A few years down the line when Yuvraj’s budding career was taking off and he would practise for hours at an end at the Army’s Shivalik Golf Club, Chandimandir, it was Bijlee again to the rescue of his regiment’s favourite child. Yuvraj’s mother could not pick him up from the golf club one day so Bijlee bundled him and his golf set into a tractor-trolley and dropped the kid safely home, underscoring the robust family-like bonds that run through a unit /battalion/regiment.
The subordinate ranks in the Indian Army adopt the children of other ranks and officers as their own. It is this support structure over the years that enabled Yuvraj’s phenomenal rise to the second position in the Tata Steel PGTI rankings for 2022 and the third-highest ranked Indian in the Official World Golf Rankings and behind two other army brats, Anirban Lahiri and Shubhankar Sharma. Fresh off his third win as a professional in the last five months at the Chandigarh Golf Club, Yuvraj told TOI: “I had access to golf facilities wherever dad got posted: Leh, Jaipur, Delhi, Dimapur. The Army had junior golf development programmes with qualified coaches.\
The best thing about army golf facilities was that I could practise hitting hundreds of golf balls and play 36-40 holes a day without any hindrance and at a very nominal fee. I played different courses during my father’s postings with different conditions and that enhanced my versatility as a professional.”
Unlike most of the fine players from Chandigarh, like another army brat, Jeev Milkha Singh, who were introduced to the sport by their fathers, it was Yuvraj’s mother, Baljit, herself an Army daughter of the Dogra Regiment, who passed on her unrealised dream of playing golf to her son. Stricken with a slipped disc, Baljit over the years put in tremendous hard work to nurture Yuvraj and even earned a reputation as a “bad, over-strict mom” because she would manipulate the alarm clock and make it go off 30 minutes earlier than the time it showed! “My effort was to inculcate a sense of discipline and dedication in Yuvraj. I would ensure he got up early at 4 am and was ready for his long runs. I was a tough task master and whenever Yuvraj would not make the efforts required during his golf training, I would yield the proverbial “danda”,” Baljit, a badminton player in her younger days, told TOI.
His sister, Epsita, a pyscho-analyst, was steadfast in lending him emotional support through the years and balanced him whenever he went awry or was down in the dumps. As his father, Brig Balwinder Singh Sandhu (retd), whose last posting was developing infrastructure on the LOC / LAC in Ladakh, rose up the ranks and developed a passion for playing golf, Baljit intervened and cut short his golfing jaunts. “My wife told me, you are spending a lot of time playing golf, spend that time looking after the training requirements of Yuvraj who is working hard on his golf career. I used to play golf with the GOC but on my wife’s intervention, I scaled down my personal golf to dedicate myself to Yuvraj,” Brig Sandhu told TOI.
Yuvraj showed gumption early on in his golfing odyssey. Just 11 years old, he ticked off a referee during a tournament at the Pune Golf Club as the latter was not maintaining the required silence while Yuvraj was lining up for a birdie putt. Having suitably chastised the sullen referee, Yuvraj coolly went on to stroke in the birdie putt! “My family’s support and from the Army made me what I am. I doubt my family could have introduced me to golf if my father was not in the armed services. I recollect that I would practise at the Sikh Regiment’s firing range in Delhi, hitting balls over trenches, whenever I could not get to the golf course. When my Dad got posted to Leh, there was a 900 yard long open space right in front of our house. I would hit balls all day and once even hit my father’s office 400 yards away prompting a quick phone call from him to my mother saying that young Yuvraj should hit the balls a wee bit left to avoid bombing my office roof!” quipped Yuvraj.