Vijay Singh thread

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Mon May 03, 2004 10:07 pm

Once in a while the topic comes up about Vijay Singh and India. I found this article in The Hindu about Vijay Singh, and I am not sure how much of an "Indian" he is but he has been to India three times, and has played in the Indian Open Golf tournament when he was playing in the Asian PGA Tour.

This is the advice Vijay has for Indian golfers in Nov 2002:

"I know Jeev (Milkha Singh) and Arjun (Atwal). They have been trying to get the USPGA Tour card and I hope they manage to get it,'' said Vijay here on Saturday.

"It really depends on how they progress. Jyoti (Randhawa) is another good talent, but first one should have some sort of foundation before moving ahead,'' he added.

"One should not try to jump ships so soon in the career. It is not going to help,'' he suggested.

Vijay Singh advises Indian pros to be patient

Vijay was supposed to play a skins game in India in April 2002 but a foot injury prevented him from going to India. He fulfilled his commitment by making the trip to India in November 2002 and donated his $21,500 winning to DLF golf club in India.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 11:32 pm

Congratulations to Vijay for finally getting the #1 ranking in the world. Very few golfers have won six PGA titles in a year and today Vijay's name got added to the list.

Ten of his 21 PGA titles have come when Tiger was in the field.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:53 am

Usually the world ranking gets updated a liitle slower but today they were quick, perhaps because there was a change at the top!

Ranking as of Sept. 6, 2004

Rank; Player; Cntry; Pnts Av; Tot Pnts; No of Events; '02/03 Pnts lost; '04 Pnts Gained

1 (2) Vijay Singh Fij 12.72 724.77 57 -327.21 + 495.28
2 (1) Tiger Woods USA 12.27 503.01 41 -392.49 + 312.42
3 (3) Ernie Els SAf 10.99 560.63 51 -312.89 + 427.68
4 (15) Phil Mickelson USA 8.84 415.59 47 -188.32 + 408.67
5 (4) Davis Love-III USA 7.56 347.95 46 -219.37 + 198.55
6 (7) Retief Goosen SAf 7.54 392.16 52 -212.16 + 254.88
7 (6) Mike Weir Can 6.34 266.16 42 -184.20 + 149.73
8 (8) Padraig Harrington Ire 5.47 268.07 49 -166.20 + 175.32
9 (25) Adam Scott Aus 5.10 285.74 56 -123.58 + 229.87
10 (5) Jim Furyk USA 5.06 207.38 41 -181.12 + 34.52

suresh · Post by **suresh** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:31 am

1 (2) Vijay Singh Fij 12.72 724.77 57 -327.21 + 495.28
2 (1) Tiger Woods USA 12.27 503.01 41 -392.49 + 312.42

Wow

Let's see who is the player of the year in 2004!

ajay · Post by **ajay** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:49 am

Suresh, there is nothing to see who will be player of the year. There is no one in contention for the player of the year except Vijay Singh.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 12:08 am

The news of Vijay becoming the new world number 1 in golf has spread all over the golfing community but it is taking time to reach all over Fiji.

The PGA web site has an article about Vijay and how his victory over Tiger is playing out in Fiji. Apparentlt Vijay has rarely visited Fiji since 1993, and I had read that his parents have moved from Fiji to either Australia or New Zealand. Perhaps our golf forum member (Sailesh), a Fijian, can tell us more about the golf politics in Fiji.

In Singh's native Fiji, his rise to No. 1 will take some time to sink in

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 11:57 pm

What an incredible display of golf by Vijay Singh in the past month or so. Many golf enthusiasts felt that Vijay was playing at his peak when he won back-to-back titles (Shell Houston Open and HP Classic of New Orleans) in April/May this year but he has surpassed that performance by winning 4 titles in 5 starts (Buick Open - 1st, PGA Championship - 1st, WGC-NEC Invitational 32nd, Deutsche Bank Championship - 1st, Bell Canadian Open - 1st).

Of the 25 PGA tournaments that he has played this year, he has 7 victories, 1 second, 1 third, 14 top ten and 20 top twenty-five.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:12 am

Vijay has now opened a nearly one point lead over Tiger Woods in the world ranking average points.

1 Vijay Singh, Fij 13.22
2 Tiger Woods, USA 12.25
3 Ernie Els, SAf 11.04
4 Phil Mickelson, USA 8.64
5 Retief Goosen, SAf 7.51

ajay · Post by **ajay** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 1:17 pm

Vijay Singh will be in India to play BILT Skins Game along with Daniel Chopra 0n Nov. 13th and 14th

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 2:30 am

Here are some interesting statistics about Vijay from GolfDigest.com.

Vijay takes 300 full-swing shots a day (pitches and putts are extra).

So how many practice shots has Vijay hit as a professional?

Conservatively, he swats 100,500 a year, which works out to 2,311,500 full swings in his 23 years on tour.

If he takes 30 seconds to hit each ball during practice, that is 1,155,750 minutes or 19,262 hours or 803 days or 2.2 years.

If each ball he hit went an average of 200 yards, that is 26,267 miles, which is all the way around the earth's circumference with over 1,300 miles to spare.

Each ball weighs 1.62 ounces and all the practice balls that he has hit weigh a combined total of 3,744,630 ounces or 234,039 pounds or 117 tones. The biggest elephant on record weighs 12 tons so Vijay has sent an equivalent of 9.75 elephants airborne during practice.

http://www.golfdigest.com/features/inde ... vijay.html

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 11:25 pm

Vijay won his 8th PGA Tour event today and pushed his money total to $9,455,566 in 26 events, surpassing Woods' $9,188,321 when he won nine times in 20 events in 2000. Vijay has four more events left to play and two of them have no cuts. He can become the first $10 million man in golf!

Congratulations to Vijay.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:42 pm

Vijay has opened up a 2 point lead over second placed Tiger Woods in the latest world rankings released today.

1 Vijay Singh, Fij 14.02
2 Tiger Woods, USA 12.02
3 Ernie Els, SAf 11.10
4 Phil Mickelson, USA 8.58
5 Retief Goosen, SAf 7.19
6 Davis Love-III, USA 7.17
7 Mike Weir, Can 6.68
8 Padraig Harrington, Ire 5.93
9 Stewart Cink, USA 5.39
10 Adam Scott, Aus 4.93

jothy · Post by **jothy** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:19 pm

ajay wrote:Vijay Singh will be in India to play BILT Skins Game along with Daniel Chopra 0n Nov. 13th and 14th

If so then it is a major boost to Indian sport. His ethnicity will be an inspiration to Indians. Hats off to him for keeping India on his schedule.

gvhvhg · Post by **gvhvhg** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 8:33 pm

that is interesting....ajay where is this info from?

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:01 pm

It is not the first time Vijay is going to India to play golf. A few years back he was invited to play golf in India and he was unable to do so (I think it was an illness that prevented him from going). But he kept his end of the bargain and went to India in the fall.

Here is an article about Vijay from Jeev Milkha Singh in 2001 that I found some time back. Here are some passages but read the entire article by following the link below.

"Now, Vijay traces his roots to the State of Rajasthan and has a soft corner for us Indian players on the Tour. During the Singapore Masters, he invited Arjun Atwal, Amandeep Johl and myself for a practice round before the event." ......

"In the course of what was turning out to be an extremely interesting and educating round, Vijay casually asked about the state of golf in India. When I told him that an Indian professional is playing almost 25 weeks without stepping out of the country and is vying for more than $500,000 on the domestic circuit, he nearly duffed his chip in surprise! After all, when he came to India in the 80s, the highest prize money in an Indian Tour event used to be about Rs. 2 lakh and the total prize money was about Rs. 15 lakh from 15-odd events!!

Thereafter, Vijay was a most interested listener. I told him how our Indian boys were performing on the Asian PGA Tour, about the new talents back home, about the two Asian PGA Tour events in India - the Hero Honda Masters and the Indian Open - the new designer courses and the general rise in interest in the game.

The next day, Vijay was asked in a press conference as to how Singapore can produce better golfers. His answer was crisp, "Follow the system set by India and Thailand."

Read the paragraph about golf and India as Jeev sees it!

"I think we Indians are genetically enriched when it comes to skills and mind games. So, while we may no longer be the best hockey team in the world where brute power is fast replacing dexterity and deftness with the stick, and may languish at the 115th place in the FIFA World Ranking as a footballing nation, we continue to produce the best surgeons and have several players in the top echelons of software industry and world chess, led by the World Champion Viswanathan Anand himself. Golf is a game that asks for skill and intelligence."

Vijay has achieved legendary status in golf[/quote]