After playing the Junior Presidents Cup in 2019, Kartik Sharma could update the tagline of his Instagram page, “Good things are about to happen”. His final amateur event before turning professional last year also happens to be the high-water mark of a career that began not too long back.
From the selection process to the letter from non-playing captain Stuart Appleby inviting him to be a part of the International team in early December 2019, the wiry 20-year-old gets breathless listing the takeaways.
Atop the jottings is his first tee shot of the four-ball against the US on Day One.
“I’ve never been so nervous, but I knew that would be the case and practiced for it by doing 50m sprints at the range before hitting a shot to be aware of the heartbeat,” says Kartik. Much to his relief, the opening shot landed centre fairway. The results did not go as he would have liked which left him determined to win the singles match come what may the next day.
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He had not stopped gushing over playing the “piece of art” called the Royal Melbourne Golf Club when the main event arrived. Meeting the crème-de la crème of world golf has been captured in photographs but what has not but remains etched is walking inside the ropes with Tiger Woods at practice, and putting tips from Bryson Dechambeau. “Given his technical approach to the game, Bryson explained how he calibrates each putt.”
The boy called Kartik walked away a man, and now that he has had a taste of top-flight golf, he is itching for more. The brush with pro golf till now was nothing to write about till the top-10 at the Delhi NCR Open on the Professional Golf Tour of India this March , but that does not rankle. The transition from amateur to professional golf is a perception for Kartik.
“Nothing changes as far as I am concerned. You still have to hole the putt to do well,” and that he is certain will get him into the Presidents Cup in the time to come.
Photo credit: Kartik Sharma
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