Gurugram: The last time an Indian won the Hero Women’s Indian Open (HWIO) was back in 2016 when an 18-year-old Aditi Ashok, fresh from her maiden Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, held off America’s two-time major champion Brittany Lincicome to prevail by a stroke.
The win marked a seminal moment in the history of women’s golf in India for it was the first occasion of an Indian winning a Ladies European Tour (LET) event.
While Aditi won’t be in action when the 16th iteration of the tournament tees off at the DLF Golf and Country Club here on Thursday — she is competing on the PGA Tour — a bunch of Indian girls will be hoping to end the seven-year wait for a home winner. Leading the Indian challenge will be the experienced Diksha Dagar, an in-form Tvesa Malik, and the up-and-coming teenager Hitaashee Bakshi.
Dagar, by virtue of her pedigree and a very creditable third-place finish here last season, will bear home hopes. The 23-year-old is the only Indian besides Aditi to win on the European Tour — she has two wins to her name — but is battling indifferent form. “It’s high time we have an Indian winner here,” the two-time Olympian said.
“I am excited to be back here. Every year when I play here it brings back wonderful memories. It would mean a lot to win. It is on my bucket list. I have wanted to win this for long,” she added.
Tvesa Malik, who recorded her maiden win on the Sunshine Ladies Tour earlier this year — a three-stroke triumph at the SuperSport Ladies Challenge — besides finishing second at the VP Bank Swiss Ladies Open where she lost to England’s Alice Hewson in a playoff will be another Indian to watch out for.
“I think it is definitely an advantage to have played here before,” said Malik. “The more you see the golf course, you understand where it’s okay to miss. And I think it can be visually very daunting when you come here for the first time to play. I think we have that advantage. It’s definitely playing firmer and faster this year and I think that would be a challenge.”
Besides the monetary impetus, a win here has the potential to unlock unexplored pathways for Indian golfers. Aditi’s career famously took off after her HWIO win. Two weeks after winning at home, she pocketed the Qatar Ladies Open, finished the season second on the Order of Merit and won the Rookie of the Year award. She also earned the LPGA Tour card for 2017 via the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament before coming agonisingly close to a medal at the Tokyo Olympics and winning a silver at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
“It’s an amazingly inspiring trajectory,” noted Bakshi, the reigning OOM topper in the domestic WGAI tour. Bakshi holds the season’s card for the Thailand PGA and has LET Q School, and later USPGA, on her radar. “Like Aditi, I also wish to play the PGA and go to the Olympics. My ultimate dream is to win an Olympic gold. I hope the journey begins here. I would like to finish as the best Indian, though a win would be great,” the 19-year-old added.
With 27 home players, India will have a good representation in the 114-strong field. Pranavi Urs and Vani Kapoor have a good record on their home course too while Amandeep Drall, who was joint second two years ago, will be hoping to deliver the goods.
Touted as one of the most competitive fields ever assembled here, the competition boasts of the current LET Order of Merit leader Chiara Tamburlini as well as Belgium’s Manon De Roey, placed second in LET’s OOM. Though defending champion Aline Krauter, having graduated to LPGA, is not here, three past winners — Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall (2011), Frenchwoman Camille Chevalier (2017), and Austria’s Christine Wolf (2019) — will line up on Thursday.
The biggest challenge, without doubt, will be taming the course. With most players hitting the putting greens soon after the Pro-Am, it’s clear that an accurate short game will be more than handy on the fast and firm course.
“It is, of course, a tough course. The Bermuda grass is playing quite fast,” Tamburlini noted.
“You really have to place the ball in the right places. It happened to me a couple of times today where I was in the wrong spot. You need to place the ball well off the tee as well. It tests every single club in your bag.”