BENGALURU: That’s how Dr C Vinod Hayagriv, MD and director of C Krishniah Chetty Group of Jewellers, refers to golf, a sport he has been playing for almost 35 years; has taken part in over 50 tournaments across the world, including Nairobi, Toronto and the foot of Kilimanjaro
It took a case of sweaty palms for Dr C Vinod Hayagriv to discover golf, or as he likes to call it, the ‘game of life’. The MD and director of C Krishniah Chetty Group of Jewellers has always been into sports but made the shift from tennis to golf at the age of 21, in 1981. “It was difficult to play tennis with clammy hands so I thought of trying golf. Not many people know that originally, Cubbon Park had a couple of greens outside the State Central Library. A retired caddy (a person who carries a golfer’s bag and clubs) taught me how to play the game there,” says Hayagriv.
Eventually, he made the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC) his home club, which is where his handicap (a measure of a golfer’s potential) is pegged as well. Over the years, however, the MD has taken part in 50 tournaments and has played in places across India and the world, including Kathmandu, Nairobi, New Zealand, Toronto, Australia, Hong Kong, etc. “I’ve also played at the foot of Kilimanjaro and in Scotland, which is where the game is said to originate,” he says.
One would then think that his most memorable game would be one played at an exotic overseas location or one where he made a sweeping victory, but surprisingly, the memory has neither. During one of the tournaments held by BGC, Hayagriv was to sign him and a friend up partners, but accidentally did so for the ‘knockout’ tournament, which goes on over a course of a month-and-a-half and requires partners to beat multiple other pairs as they progress.
“When you play with club members, they know your strengths and weaknesses. So, most of the other members wanted to play in the afternoon instead of the morning because those were our busy hours. We decided to make it work somehow and thought we would get out within the second or third round anyway,” he shares. But Hayagriv was wrong.
The duo didn’t just make it to the last round of the knockouts but beat the club’s president as well. While they were neck to neck till the end, the last putt turned things around and Hayagriv and his partner emerged second. “What we did gain was a bond with each other. You really learn a lot about a person when you play together,” he says, adding that the two still refer to each other as ‘partner’ instead of their names.
The same knockout also went on to teach him some valuable lessons. Golf, he says, is just like life. “You think everything is going well until the last putt is played and things change. No matter how much you plan, nothing is over till it actually is done. You can plan all you want but unless you see things through till that last detail, it’s not good enough,” he shares.
According to him, when one is so heavily involved with a game (he would often play golf from 7:30am to 4pm on Sundays), one’s spouse either gets angry or gets inspired to take up the sport too. Which is what happened in this case, with Hayagriv’s wife playing golf too, albeit temporarily. But who’s the better player? “Oh, that would be my son, Shreyas,” he says with a smile.
Besides work commitments, Hayagriv has also been occupied as the (now former) chairman of the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation and member of the World Diamond Council. While he has been away from the golf course for three-and-a-half years, his hiatus is going to come to an end very soon. “I’ll be back at it again next month. Any golfer tends to miss the greenery and outdoors too much,” he says.