From caddie lines to centre stage

BEFOREANYONE STARTS pulling out record books and world rankings, let me say this upfront.

- Rahil Gangjee

India has produced golfers who have achieved far more on the global stage than thenames I am about to talk about. This is not a list of our most decorated champions. This is not about who won the most on the European Tour or who cracked the highest world ranking. This is about something else altogether. This is about the men who came from nothing, who learned the game while carrying bags, collecting balls, cutting grass and borrowing clubs, and who quietly built the foundation of professional golf in this country. The ones who turned “rags to riches” from a cliché into a lived reality. The ones who made it possible for later generations to dream of golf as a profession.

These are the unsung heroes. The domes-tickings. The pioneers who didn’t just play the game in India — they created the ecosystem for it. Chronologically, the story begins with three towering figures: Rohtas Singh, fondly called Guruji; Basad Ali, the artist of the short game; and Ali Sher, the man who broke a psychological barrier by winning the Indian Open as a professional. Their stories deserve to be told before we even get to the more familiar modern names.

Rohtas Singh - Guruji, the original torchbearer

Rohtas Singh was not just a golfer. He was an institution. Long before corporate-backed academies, long before structured junior programmes, long before fitness trainers and launch monitors, there was Guruji — winning, teaching, inspiring and carrying Indian golf on his shoulders. He came from humble beginnings, learned the game the hard way, and went on to dominate the domestic circuit for decades. He won an astonishing number of tournaments across India at a time when travel itself was a luxury and equipment was often borrowed or outdated.