Kartik (L) receiving the winner’s trophy from Rishi Mattu (R) – General Manager, ITC Grand Bharat
Gurgaon’s Kartik Singh, the country’s most promising young male golfer, delivered an emphatic 12-stroke victory at the IGU Haryana State Junior Boys, held at ITC Classic Golf & Country Club in Gurgaon. Kartik posted rounds of 69, 70, 71, and signed off with a blistering 8-under 64 for a total of 14-under 274. His performance solidifies the fact that he has outgrown Indian junior golf.
Such margins of victory are no longer outliers for Kartik. In December 2024, he won the 64th Annual IGU All India Junior Boys Championship at Karnataka Golf Association with a final score of 11-under-par, finishing nine shots ahead in the Overall category and 19 shots clear in Category B (U-15).
Kartik’s most recent International win came at the Singapore Junior Golf Championship last year in June, and since then, he has continued to gain ground globally. As of now, Kartik has recorded five Top-10 finishes in WAGR-counting events this year, contributing to a career-best World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) of 117.
In the broader context of Indian golf, Kartik’s rise is both promising and timely. As India seeks the next wave of global performers in the post-Aditi Ashok and Shubhankar Sharma era, Kartik Singh seems to hold promise for the future. However, India needs a dozen such talents if it is to rise to the former glory days when Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal, and Jyoti Randhawa dominated the Asian Tour and made their mark globally.